From Our Own Correspondent, Edinburgh, Mar. 22.
One is in doubt whether to welcome or lament the change that has taken place in the game of golf, as in most other games, within recent years. Lord Anderson called attention to this at the dinner of the Edinburgh Burgess Golfing Society, pointing out that modern golf 1s a strenuous game, and their Jeading professionals, such as George Duncan, were training like professional boxers. For this state of affairs the Americans, and to a Jesser degree Englishmen are to blame. In former days, the real exponents of the game, the golfers of Scotland, played it as it should be played,—namely, as a match game. Then it was a pastime; now it is fast becoming a vocation. So far, however, the great army of Scottish amateur golfers "go round" for love of the game and for the benefit of its recreative properties.
The question arises whether the recreative value of the sport is not diminished or destroyed by this change to strenuous conditions? Is it good for the golfer who plays only for health and mental distract tion te have his nervous system subjected to such a strain?
Every one must answer the question for himself. There are players who find no interest whatever in anything but a game pushed to the utmost competitive extreme. Others only find enjoyment in the old-fashioned conditions. Let each enjoy the game his own way. Controversy will not alter matters one whit, or retard the modern movement. The game and the players in time will find their own level.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.