Spirit of the links

A
MISSING
CLUB
commission had been experimented with, and there
was no good result. And then a strange thing
happened. Things were at about their worst, when,
as sometimes was the case, this poor tormented golfer
awoke in his bed very early one morning in summer.
The sun had not long broken the darkness; it was
about three o'clock. Being a man who went to bed
betimes and who was early refreshed, he did this
time, as on others, lie in long thought upon the events
of life and his own affairs, the perfect stillness of the
time conducing to effective contemplation. And,
as was inevitable, the chain of reflection brought him
round to the prevailing worry of the game, and for
half an hour or so he considered this grave problem
from every conceivable point of view, and subjected
each iron instrument that was concerned with it to
the severest cross-examination, from which none
emerged with an unspotted reputation. It is not
always in the human golfer to attach entire blame
to flesh and blood, and wholly exonerate inanimate
iron. Pride must have its place, even in the times of
adversity. This man was self-assured that one reason
for his failure—not the whole reason, perhaps; but
still one reason—was that all his searchings and
purchasings had yet left him without the club that he
really needed, that one which was resting somewhere
in a shop or in another man's bag, that was the
affinity of his game, the thing that was meant for
him and which one day might come his way. He
had a vague instinct of what the feel of that club
would be like, of the shape of its head, its balance,
and the length of the shaft. When he encountered it
he would know it at once for the long-sought-for
club.