Spirit of the links

THE PROFESSOR ON THE LINKS
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`HE problem of the golf ball's flight is one of
j. very serious difficulty." That is what was
said to a gathering of savants by Professor Peter
Guthrie Tait, one of the most brilliant scientists of
the latter part of the last century, and the only man
who has probed deeply into the real science of the
game of golf. He was a wonderful man in many
respects. He applied his marvellous scientific know-
ledge and powers of investigation to everything that
came his way. One day he would be extracting
cube roots from the most unsuspected quarters, and
another he would be analysing the character and
formation of the ripples on the surface of a viscous
liquid. A few flourishes of the knife of science, a
sharp explosion with one of his specially prepared
formul&—consisting
of the most wonderful combina-
tions of the Y's, the y's, the r's, and the �'s—and the
common but stubborn thing of everyday life was
made to yield up its innermost secrets, so that thence-
forward it was regarded in a quite different way from
that which it had been in the past.
Nothing was sacred from the application of the
Professor's science, and golf was not; but to the
credit of the game be it said that some of its scientific