Spirit of the links

IN EGYPT
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are worthy of the baptism of an ancient country like
Egypt to a Royal and Ancient game. Rameses
II.
and Cleopatra would have approved.
This is the true story. A full-blooded Scottish
golfer, imbued with all the best traditions, and all the
better for being a clergyman, none other than the well-
known Rev. J. H. Tait of Aberlady, went for a holiday
to Egypt, and duly climbed to the top of the Great
Pyramid. Arrived there he rested, and to do so the
more effectually he put his hands into his pockets,
when, curiously enough, he felt a golf ball in one of
them. In a moment the golfer was ablaze in the
parson, and he determined that right there on the
summit of the Great Pyramid of Cheops he would
play the game for the first time in Egypt. So he teed
up the ball and addressed it most elaborately and
conscientiously with his umbrella, for, of course, he
had no clubs with him. There were none in Egypt.
Then he made a bonny St. Andrews swing: the ball
went spinning away through the fine desert atmosphere
and was never seen again—by the man who hit it, at
all events. There were some great jokes about this
shot afterwards. They said that in future days some
old antiquary would find this ball in the desert sand,
and would try to make out the hieroglyphics (the
name of the maker, Tom Morris) upon it. As they
would then be indistinct it would be suggested that
they stood for Moses, and the inference would be that
the lawgiver of Israel was a golfer.
Some years after that a course was laid out near
Cairo. The men who made that course and played
the first golf were none other than Mr. J. E. Laidlay,
twice Amateur Champion, and Sir Edgar Vincent, who
won the Parliamentary handicap in 19o5. This was
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