When I come to athateurs there is 'a long list to choose from, " In most of the families the talent is purely masculine, In some, it is to be found both sexes, and in two it is purely feminine, Of this last phenomenon, the obvious example is that of the Misses Leitch of Silloth, five of them in all, all good players though four of them are a little dwarfed and obscured, as is only natural, by the mighty Miss Ceci Tt should be added, however, that there was a brother who would, believe, have been a fine player bad he. not died very young. The less well-known example is that of the three Misses Orr, who flashed like meteors across the golfing sky as Tong ago as 1897. Their fame was great, if rather vague, for they had never played in any kind of championship, and indeed played chiefly by: ithemselves. The terror of their name was, perhaps, the greater, singe it had this element of the un-Kkiown, One or two rash people actitally.said that rumour was 'a magnifier, and that perhaps the Mistes Orr were not really s0 good after all, Then, in 1807, the championship came to Gullane, next door to their home course of North Berwick, and these three ladies entered. The final was contested between two of them, and probably the
were not a law of the game that would have been there too, if there cannot be more than two people in A final. And then, having given their proofs so signally, the ladies disappeared from competition golf as swiftly as they had come, and have mow become a legend and a myth. How good they were, it is impossible to say; but they were beyond doubt the' best of their day.
the golfing' families in which both men and women have shone, there are. the Whighams of Prest-wick, the Hezlets of Portrush, the Gratiams of Hoylake, and the Scotts, generally candid critic Antagonists who will they furnish ike hard ani spare not.
Helpful Criticism In Miss Cecil Leitch's book there is a very pleasant little picture from the pen of a member of the Silloth (Golf Club, of Miss Cecil and her elder Miss May. "I was playin golf at Silloth," he says "one day many years ago; and, ari iving at the 1dth or heather' hole, my part ner and I came across' two little curly-haired girls dressed. alike white sailor coats, blue serge kilted skirts, white soc! and little black patent-leather' ankle-strap slipper: One was hacking away in the he her, whil the other stood with legs erossed and looked on. After many fruitless efforts by the ito dislodge the ball, she
exclaimed 'I can't get it out!" turned round and, in a pathetic voice which the other answered 'No, it needs strength, and you lack it!" Brutal no doubt, but salutary'
Another example of the brain discipline of family frankness I cul from Miss Wethered in Golf from Two Sides.
T can remember some when I asked my brother a ques about golf which I was either too lazy or too ignorant to find out for invariable answer was telling' me anything, since T should never be any good until T found out things for myself."
That the elder brother or sister is likely to influence the others is certain. "Sometimes one finds fally graceful. evidence of it very unexpectedly. That most famous of Scottish ama-tours, Freddie Tait, had a clearly marked and characteristic style which I fancy everyone believed to belong to him alone and to be part of his natural genius.
Yet he had unquestionably imitated his brother.
remember very well that, after Freddie had been killed in the South African War, his elder brother, Mr. Jack Tait,"camie"horie from india where he had been a long time, and T played in a foursome with him at North Berwick. And there was Freddie's swing once more before not quite the ne ease and poise perhaps, nor quite the same effortless power, for the younger brother had improved on the elder; but it was, essentially, the same style; and there was something a little ghostly about the performance.
Heredity and the Hezlets In the examples I have given, [easy to see that brothers and sister have helped one another; but save in one of the families, there is no distinguished golfing parentage.
The fathers have been in several cases keen golfers, but they have not been tinguished ones.
As to. the mothers T can only "say that Mrs.} Wethered is a ping-pong player of great ferocity, as I can testify from Scotch.
The record of Biss Florence is one of continually running into her elder sister and getting the worst of the encounter. Three times in four years she reached the final of the Trish Championship -but, alas! the other finalist was always Miss May, who was standing no nonsense from isters. In the fourth year to the final of the Open Championship, but still the thing happened. She could not get away from Miss May. Miss Violet appears to have been cleverer iding' that terrible Miss May, twice got into the final without her, but there was another very formidable impedi case, Miss Rhona Adai golfer. So there was another runner-up in the Healet family.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.