Out-door Games: Cricket and Golf/Chapter Q0

We don't want to plagiarize, although a rubber-cored cricket ball is a nice idea. "But look here, Buddenbrook," Gratjens broke in, leaning far over the table and shifting his cue in his bony hand as he took careful aim, "I don’t get the idea. In the same way you may go round a hazard instead of trying to get over it. A "Post and Handy-Cap Match" is described in Pond’s Racing Calendar for 1754. A reference to something similar in Germany and Scandinavia, called Freimarkt, may be found in Germania, vol. The sticks were initially called maces and had a rather large tip. To be two yards beyond is far better than to be two yards short, for in the first place you give the ball a chance of holing, and in the second place it relieves the eye somewhat to turn round and putt along a different line. But he is somewhat pachydermatous and case-hardened when he gets on the green, and it is astonishing what a difference a deadly long putt can make in the fortunes of a match.

The Prince de Wissembourg, knowing all about Madame Marneffe's conduct, approved of the young lawyer's secret project; he had promised him, as a President of the Council can promise, the secret assistance of the police, to enlighten Crevel and rescue a fine fortune from the clutches of the diabolical courtesan, whom he could not forgive either for causing the death of Marshal Hulot or for the Baron's utter ruin. Both pleasant in appearance; the young man good-looking, the girl beautiful; he with almost boyish simplicity, she with womanly shrewdness. I know perfectly well that a man may feel unutterably nervous before he goes in to bat at cricket, but his nervousness goes when he has scored twenty runs, and been in half-an-hour. Pringle thanked him for his information, and went back to the stable-yard, where he lost the fourth test match by sixteen runs, owing to preoccupation. After which he went to bed.

In the programme which Pringle had mapped out for himself, he was to go to bed with his book at the highly respectable hour of ten, work till eleven, and then go to sleep. If you get out, well you have no further opportunity of getting nervous till your second innings comes round, and under no circumstances ought a bowler to be nervous, as one bad ball may always be redeemed by a wicket next ball. If it stays there till the inning is played out, it will count as many points in the game as the figure in the square it has stopped in represents. This game requires strategic positioning and precise shot-making skills. In like manner, if a young golfer makes up his mind that he will not allow himself to be disturbed if a rook flies across the line of play, or his opponent talks to his caddie, he will find that such things will not disturb him and he will enjoy the game more himself and be a far pleasanter companion and opponent to everybody else. To get the strength of every green fixed in your mind is difficult for any man, for a nervous man well-nigh impossible.

In putting, a man is generally so impressed by the fact that a reserve of strength is needful, that a contrary effect is produced, and he is nearly always short-nervousness in putting in nine cases out of ten makes a man hit too softly. A fearless man is fearless because he has confidence, and to feel confidence is impossible when playing with a club that bitter experience has told you you cannot use. Drinking is apparently pleasant to many, judging by the Excise returns, but ingenuous youth is told by a wise father that he must not give way to it, and he does not. Every youth should be told by some candid friend that to be a faddist is silly, and if the desire be resisted when he is young it will never prevail. A great player-I may say a very great player-once told me that he had been unable to drive off the tee to his satisfaction for no less a period than four years-this player must have been more than human if to a greater or less degree he was not during all that time in an important match troubled with nerves when he took his stand on the tee.

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