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Wet Golf in Dry History

The Middle Ages, from what we know about them, were days of pretty tall deeds and pretty tall talk. In the Middle Ages if a man accomplished a feat of arms, or a feat of dexterity, or a feat of anything, he didn't let it get spoiled for want of telling. In witness of which take the marvellous accounts of archery, swordsmanship, strength, skill, and magic which fill the pages of mediæval romance from the Chanson de Roland to Walter Scott.

And there is no doubt that the "tall talk" of the Middle Ages was greatly helped along by the prevailing habit of tall drinking. They drank in those days not by the glass but by the barrel. They knew nothing of "flasks" or "cups" or "glasses," or such small degenerate measures as those of their descendants. When they wanted a real drink they knocked in the head of a "cask" or "tun" and gathered round it and drank it to the bottom of the barrel.

Even for a modest individual drink they needed a "flagon,"—and a "flagon" in the Middle Ages was of the same size as one of our garden watering pots. A man who had inside him a couple of flagons of old "Malmsey" or old "Gascony," had a power of talk and energy in him no longer known among us. When it is added that old "Malmsey" only cost ten pennies for a full imperial gallon,—six of our quarts,—one can see that even the dark age had its bright spots and that history was not so dry as it is called.

As a result, not only were the deeds and feats of arms of the Middle Ages bigger than ours, but even the narration of them had more size. And the spectators and witnesses, having sopped up on their own account a few "hogsheads" of "mead" or sack, could see more, far more, than our poor dried-out audiences. In witness of which take any account of any tournament, bear fight, bullfight, archery match or rat hunt anywhere from 1000 to 1500 A.D.

For all of which deeds and performances, the running accompaniment of knocking in hogsheads and draining flagons kept the whole event in character.

No king in the Middle Ages ever appeared at a public tournament or joust without ordering the ends of half a dozen casks of sack to be knocked in. No royal christening was ever held without "tuns" of ale being distributed or "broached" for the populace, and "pipes" of wine being pumped into the nobility. At all big celebrations there were huge bonfires. Oxen were roasted whole. Any good man would get away with fifteen pounds of roast meat, six gallons of ale and a flagon of brandy, and go roaring home with an atmosphere round him like the mist round a brewery.

Those were great days. We cannot compete with them.

But in just one point the superiority is ours. The mediæval people didn't have our opportunities. Their archery, and their tournaments were poor stuff beside our games of to-day. Just think what would have happened if they had had such a thing as golf in the Middle Ages! Imagine the way in which, with their flagons of sack and their hogsheads of Malmsey right on the ground, they could have carried out a golf match. Imagine what they could have done in the narration of it afterwards! Conceive what could have been made of a mediæval Hole in One. Our poor unimaginative truth-telling generation can form but little idea as to how they would have dealt with it.

What follows below represents an account of a Hole in One, as achieved in the year 1215 A.D. and related after the style of mediæval romance. It is based on the account of the famous tournament and meeting at Ashby de la Zouche (which is in England) during the reign of King John. On that famous occasion, as Walter Scott related in his Ivanhoe, there was an archery match between Hubert the Norman, the protégé of King John, and the Mysterious Bowman, Locksley, otherwise Robin Hood the Saxon Outlaw. In this contest Hubert "sped his arrow" (that's the mediæval name for what he did) with such consummate skill that it pierced the very centre of the bull's-eye, three hundred yards away. But Locksley had a still more consummate touch. He sped his shaft with such unerring dexterity that the point of it struck fair in the notch of Hubert's arrow, still sticking in the bull's-eye, and split it into two exactly even halves! After which even the stingy King John had to treat the crowd, a whole meadowful, to about two firkins each.

Imagine what would happen if people who could write that kind of thing and people who could believe it had had a chance at a golf story.

Come! Let us turn Hubert and Locksley into their twentieth-century form and make the contest a Hole-in-One-Shot! Thus:—

All was now prepared. The vast concourse of spectators, both Norman and Saxon, crowded the vacant spaces of the course, and even invaded the fairways from which the heralds and poursuivants sought in vain to dislodge them. The humbler churls, or jarls, clustered in the branches of the trees.

At intervals along the course great "butts" or "tuns" by which we mean "vats," had been placed, from which not only the yeomanry but even the commonry were permitted that day to drink at the King's expense.

King John was seated on a dais beside the sand-box of Tee No. 1, at the edge of which the pious Archbishop Stephen Langton knelt in prayer for the success of the Norman Hubert. Around and about the tee, on tiers of rudely contrived benches, the Knights of the Household in full (autumn) armour were mingled with the resplendent Ladies of the Court.

"Sirrah!" said the King, turning sternly to Hubert, "dost think thou canst outswat this Saxon fellow?"

"My grandsire," said Hubert, "played in the Hastings handicap, and it shall go hard with me an I fall short of his score."

The King scowled but said nothing.

"What is bogey?" whispered Roger Bigod, Earl of Bygod, to Sir John Montfaucon de la Tour, who stood beside him near the tee.

"Three, so it thinks me," answered Sir John.

"And gives either of the contestants as it were a bisque or holeth he in one stroke the fewer?"

"Nay," said Montfaucon, "they play as man to man, or as who should say at scratch."

At this moment the loud sound of a tucket armoured by the winding of a hobo from the second tee announced that the lists were clear.

"Let the course be measured!" commanded the Chief Marshal.

On this Sir Roger Mauleverer of the Tower and Sir Eustace, the Left-handed, Constable of the Constable, attended by six poursuivants carrying a line of silken yarn, measured the distance.

"How stands it?" asked the King.

"Four hundred ells, six firkins, and a demilitre," answered the Marshal.

At the mention of this distance—which corresponds in our modern English to more than four hundred yards—an intense hush fell upon the attendant crowd. That a mere ball no larger than a pheasant's egg could be driven over this tremendous distance by a mere blow from a mere wand of hickory, daunted the mere imagination.

The King, who well knew that the approaching contest was in reality one between Norman and Saxon and might carry with it the loss of his English crown, could ill conceal the fears that racked his evil conscience. In vain his cupbearer fetched him goblet after goblet of Gascony. Even the generous wine failed to enliven the mind or to dissipate the fears of the doomed monarch. A great silence had fallen upon the assembled knights and ladies, broken only by the murmured prayers of the saintly archbishop kneeling beside the sand-box. Even the stout hearts of such men as Sir Roger Bigod de Bygod and Sir Walter de la Tenspot almost ceased to beat.

"Have done with this delay," exclaimed the King. "Let the men begin."

Hubert the Norman stepped first onto the tee. His lithe frame, knit to a nicety, with every bone and joint working to its full efficiency, was encased in a jerkin of Andalusian wool, over a haut-de-chausse, or plus eight, of quilted worsted. He carried in his right hand a small white ball, while in his left he bore a shaft or club of hickory, the handle bound with cordovan leather and the end, or tip, or as the Normans called it the bout, fashioned in a heavy knob flattened on one side to a hexagonal diagonal.

The manner of the Norman Hubert was grave, but his firm movements and his steady eye showed no trace of apprehension as he adjusted the ball upon a small heap of sand upon the forward, or front, part of the tee.

"Canst do it?" queried the agonizing King, his hands writhing nervously on the handle of his sceptre.

"My grandsire ..." began Hubert.

"You said that before," cried John. "Shoot!"

Hubert bowed and paused a moment to drink a flagon of Amsterdam gin handed to him by the King's boutellier or bottle-washer. Then, standing poised on the balls of his feet at a distance of two Norman demis (twenty-six and a half English inches) from the ball, he waved his club in the air as if testing its weight, while his keen eye measured the velocity of the wind.

Then, as the crowd waited in breathless silence, Hubert suddenly swung the hickory to his full reach behind his shoulder and brought it down in a magnificent sweep, striking the ball with its full impact.

There was a loud resilient "click," distinctly heard by the spectators at the second tee, while a great shout arose from all the Normans as the ball rose in the air describing a magnificent parabola in its flight.

"A Hubert! A Hubert!" they shouted. "Par le Sang de Dieu," exclaimed Sir Roger Bigod de Bygod, "some stroke!"

Meantime the ball, glistening in the sunshine and seeming to gather force in its flight, swept above the fairway and passed high in the air over the ground posts that marked the hundred, the two hundred, and the three hundred ells, still rushing to its goal.

"By the body of St. Augustine!" cried the pious Guillaume de la Hootch, "'twill reach the green itself!"

"It has!" shouted Sir Roger Bigod. "Look! Look! They are seizing and lifting the flag! 'Tis on! 'Tis in! By the shirt of St. Ambrose, the ball is in the can!"

And as Sir Roger spoke a great shout went up from all the crowd, echoed even by the Saxon churls who lined the branches of the trees. "A Hole in One! A Hole in One!" cried the multitude, while an immediate rush was made to the barrels or vats of mead which lined the course, into which the exultant populace precipitated themselves head first.

For such readers as do not understand the old Norman game of Goffe, or Gouffe—sometimes also called Guff—it is proper to explain that in the centre of each parterre or terrace, sometimes called a Green or Pelouse—it was customary to set a sunken receptacle or can, of the kind used by the Normans to can tomatoes, into which the ball must ultimately be driven. The virtue of Hubert's stroke was that he had driven the ball into the can (a feat for which many Normans required eight, ten, or even twenty strokes) in one single blow, an achievement called in old Norman a "Hole in One."

And now the voice of the Chief Herald could be heard calling through hautboy or megaphone:

"Hole No. 1; stroke No. 1. Hubert of Normandy scores Hole in One. Player in hand, J. Locksley, of Huntingdon, England. Clear the fairway for shot No. 2."

All eyes now turned to where the splendid figure of the mysterious Locksley, the Unknown Golfer or Gopher, ascended the first tee. It was known to all that this was in reality none other, or little other, than the Saxon outlaw Robin Hood, who was whispered to be the Earl of Huntingdon and half whispered to be, by his descent from his own grandmother, the Saxon claimant to the throne.

"How now, Locksley!" sneered the triumphant John as the Saxon appeared beside him, "canst beat that?"

Every gaze rested upon Locksley as he stood leaning upon his hickory club. His mysterious appearance at Ashby de la Zouche and the whispers as to his identity lent to him a romantic, and almost fearsome interest, while his magnificent person marked him as the beau ideal of the Saxon Golfer still seen at times even in the mimic contests of to-day.

His powerful form could have touched the balance at two hundred and eighty-five pounds avoir-dupois. The massive shoulders would have seemed out of proportion but for the ample sweep of the girth or waistline and the splendid breadth of the netherward or rearward hind-quarters.

He was clad, like Hubert, in woollen jerkin and plus eights, and he bore on his feet the terrific spiked sandals of the Saxon, capable of inflicting a mortal blow.

Locksley placed his ball, and then, grasping in his iron grip the leather-bound club-headed hickory hexagonal, he looked about him with complete sang-froid and even something of amusement.

The King's boozelier, or booze-hound, now approached Locksley and, after the courtesy of the age, offered him a horn, or "jolt" of gin. The Saxon put it aside and to the astonishment of the crowd called only for water, contenting himself with a single bucketful.

"Drink'st not?" said the scowling King.

"Not in hours of busyness," said Locksley firmly.

"And canst thou outdo Hubert's shot?" sneered John.

"I know not," said Locksley carelessly; "Hubert's shot was not half bad, but I'll see if I can touch up his ball for him in the tomato can."

"Have done with boasting!" cried the King. "Tell the archbishop to count three, and then let the fellow shoot. If he fail, my lord Montfaucon and you, Roger Bigod of Bygod, see that he does not leave the tee alive."

The archbishop raised his saintly face towards the skies and began to count.

"Unum!" he said, using the neuter gender of the numeral adjective in accordance with the increasing deterioration of the Latin language which had already gone far in the year 1215 A.D.

"Duo," said the archbishop, and then in a breathless hush, as the word "tres" quivered on the lips of the ecclesiastic, Locksley's club cleft the air in a single flash of glittering sunlight and descended upon the ball with such force that the sound of the concussion echoed back from the woods beyond the farthest green.

In a moment the glittering trajectory of the missile could be followed high in its flight and then the curve of its rushing descent towards the green. For a moment the silence was so intense that even the faint rustling of the grass was audible to the ear, then the crashing concussion of the driven ball against the inner tin of the tomato can showed that Locksley also had achieved a Hole in One! But the gasp or gulp of astonishment had hardly passed when the crowd became aware that Locksley's skilled marksmanship had far surpassed the mere feat of a Hole in One accomplished by his opponent. His ball, driven with a power and accuracy that might well-nigh seem incredible, had struck against Hubert's ball inside the can at exactly the angle necessary to drive it out with great force and start it back in flight towards the first tee.

To the amazement of all beholders, Hubert's ball, easily distinguishable by two little dots on its lower face, was seen rushing in rapid flight to retrace its course above the fairway. So true was its path that it landed back precisely on the tee from which Hubert had shot it and came to rest on the little pile of sand on which the Norman gopher had originally placed it.

"By God!" shouted Bigod of Bygod, as Locksley picked up the ball and handed it with a bow to King John.

A wild shout that rose alike from the Saxon Thanes, the Danes, and even the Normans, rent the air, while even the ladies of the court, carried away in a burst of chivalrous admiration, tore off their silken baldrics and threw them at the feet of the victor.

Nobles and commons alike, Norman and Saxon together seized axe or bill and began beating in the heads of the casks in their eagerness to drink the health of the victor.

"A Locksley! A Locksley!" cried the multitude. For the moment the King paused. His ear caught in the roaring plaudits of the crowd the first note of that mighty unison of Saxon and Norman voices which was destined to cast him from his power.

He knew that any attempt against the life or person of the Saxon chieftain was without avail.

He turned to the venerable archbishop, who was prostrate beside the tee, eating sand.

"Fetch me the Magna Carta," he said, "and I'll sign it."