Spirit of the links

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THE SPIRIT OF THE LINKS
is an optimist. I deny that it is possible to be a good
golfer in the best sense and not be an out-and-out
optimist.
Another fine thing about Tom, and one that has
always endeared him to the golfing world, is the fact
that there has never been anything in the least
niggardly in the gratitude which he extends towards
the game with which his life has been bound up.
Suggest to Tom that there is anything better in life
than golf, and you have done the first thing towards
raising up a barrier of reserve between him and you.
Listen to how he spoke of the game of his heart on a
New Year's Day twenty-one years back from now,
when even then he was by way of becoming an old
man. "An' it hadna been for gowff," he said to the
patron who greeted him in the customary form for
the first day of the year, " I'm no sure that at this
day, sir, I wad hae been a leevin' man. I've had ma
troubles an' ma trials, like the lave ; an' whiles I
thocht they wad hae clean wauved me, sae that to
'lay me doun an' dee'—as the song says—lookit about
a' that was left in life for puir Tam. It was like as if
ma vera sowle was a'thegither gane oot o' me. But
there's naething like a ticht gude gowing mautch to
soop yer brain clear o' that kin' o' thing; and wi' the
help o' ma God an' o' gowff, I've aye gotten warsled
through somehow or ither. The tae thing ta'en wi'
the tither, I haena had an ill time o't. I dinna
mind that iver I had an unpleasant word frae ony o'
the many gentlemen I've played wi'. I've aye tried—as
ma business was, sir—to mak' masel' pleesant to them;
an' they've aye been awfu' pleesant to me. An' noo,
sir, to end a long and maybe a silly crack—bein'
maistly about masel'—ye'll just come wi' me, an' ye'll