Out-door Games: Cricket and Golf/Chapter 11

by Robert Henry Lyttelton

CHAPTER XI

Amateurs and Professionals

It appears to be the case that the number of amateurs who have apparently no occupation, and who therefore can give their whole time to the pursuit of their favourite enjoyment, has increased and is increasing. There are amateur cricketers who play for a county all through the season, and there are amateur golfers who, living near a links, devote most of the year to their own club and ground, and spend what remains over at some famous Scotch links like North Berwick or St. Andrews. Of course there always have been individuals fortunate enough to be able to do this, but it seems to me the number is increasing, and the result will be that, as far as skill and proficiency at the game are concerned, there will not be much to choose between amateurs and professionals. For the last few years Messrs. Ball, Tait, Hilton, Laidlay, Hutchinson, and Balfour would have been able to hold their own against Taylor, Herd, Park, the two Kirkaldys, and Braid, and in this case the amateurs have not all been able to give their whole time to golf. As for cricket, it is no good mincing words; we all know that many so-called amateurs are and have been professionals, have been paid indirectly if not directly, and have, in fact, lived by the game. I do not think that this is the case at golf, and I earnestly hope that it never will be. One reason, and a very substantial reason, against it is that golf is a game for individuals, cricket is for a club or county; gate money cannot be charged for one, while the other lives on it. There is no rivalry between St. Andrews and Prestwick, Hoylake and Sandwich, as there is between Surrey and Notts, or Yorkshire and Lancashire. If a man wants to make money at golf, he can only do it by becoming an obvious professional, taking chaise of a green, or being employed and paid as a coach. Our so-called amateurs at cricket carry on quite a different system: they accept money under the disguise of expenses, they are called under-secretaries of the clubs, while they play every match; and finally, a benefit match is not played in their behalf, but a complimentary match is, and I have never yet heard a definition given of these two terms which would establish a difference between them. You may blink at the fact in whatever way you like, but when once any sort of payment is given, whether under the head of expenses or whatever else you like, you then and there make it impossible to have clear and sound principles whereby you may call every man one of two things—an amateur or professional.

I can only explain the very large number of amateurs by the fact that the wealth of the country is being distributed over wider areas. It would not appear to be quite germane to a talk on golf, but it is, I believe, true that the increase in the number of limited liability companies is one cause of the increase of the ranks of the amateurs who can practically devote all their time to golf. Where manufactories, ironworks, and coal-pits were all worked by an individual, or by an individual and his sons or brothers, each had to take his share of the work, and very hard work it was, too. The hunting, shooting, or cricket had to be pursued as a pastime and as a change. In course of time, however, we find that the family colliery is a public company, with a board of directors, and owned not by two or three, but by hundreds of proprietors, and managed by perhaps one or two managing directors, who practically do all the work, while the profits are scattered all over the country. The result is that the labours of a few men make the profits of many, and the many can play golf, cricket, or anything else they like. Socially, in one sense, this is all to the good: it is far better that when large profits are made they should be distributed amongst many rather than amongst a few. Whether it is good that so large a number of men should be in a position to live not on their own exertions but on that of others, is a question that cannot be discussed here, but it explains to my mind the large increase in the numbers of those who can devote more time to golf and cricket now than the professionals did forty years ago. At golf, as I have said before, it is impossible to make money as an amateur, at any rate sufficient money to constitute a livelihood. But a professional at golf who is steady, and has been wise enough to learn to make clubs and balls, has now a fine opportunity of leading a healthy life and making a good income. The enormous growth of golf in England and Wales found many clubs in want of greenkeepers, club-makers, and players, and Scotland was denuded of professionals steady and wise enough to take greens some few years back. Now the professional youth of England has learnt the art, and, as far as professionals are concerned, the Scotch monopoly has been broken up. Taylor, Vardon, and many others can now compete with the best, and it is a good illustration of the quickness of Englishmen to pick up games that so many have been found who are first-class players. Golf has indeed taken root in England to a degree that is almost miraculous, and the demand for clubs and balls has made possible the establishment of businesses devoted to their manufacture which would have staggered our forefathers could they have foreseen these things. It really has come to this, that Englishmen, wherever they go, must have golf, and France has to supply their needs, and Italy, and Spain, while America is spending fortunes in the pursuit of the game. All these countries were obliged, in the first instance, to get their clubs and balls from Scotland, and if the canny Scotch club-maker has not done well during the last few years it is surprising.

Cricket can only be played in the summer, football can be played any time of the year except the summer, but golf, though perhaps at its pleasantest in spring and autumn, can be played by the real enthusiast all through the year, and in consequence the professional is more constantly employed in one sense. But for caddies and for professional players who have no other trade golf is somewhat intermittent, and if I could dare to give advice to the nation generally, I should advise those responsible for the education of professional youth to insist on the teaching of something besides the mere playing of golf. If you think of the life of a caddie you will see at once that it is somewhat of an intermittent and loafing character. The employer plays two rounds a day; this means about four and a half hours' work for the caddie, not enough to keep him constantly employed, but just enough to keep him from engaging himself in any other pursuit for the rest of the day. He is probably handling clubs and mastering the art of the game, but it is nevertheless not by any means a wholesome life, and the wise parent will not hesitate to make him learn a trade if he can get the chance. I also think it wise and right for golf clubs not to encourage the trade of the caddie for youths above fifteen or sixteen years old. The trade may be all very well for a boy, but carrying clubs ought not to be the staple occupation of a man; he is bound to take to drink, for he has so much idle time on his hands.^[1] The Scotch are far more particular in the enforcing of the Education Act than the English. At a crowded green like North Berwick, for instance, it is almost impossible to get a boy of thirteen and under to act as caddie; they are all at school. In England somehow there seems to be no difficulty at all. The golfer therefore is driven to get somebody, for to carry your own clubs is slavery, so grown-up men are pressed into the service, and as long as the season lasts the man does very well. But when the visitors go there is no longer the same demand, and under ordinary circumstances the man caddie would find himself in a bad way. Employers will not employ a man who wants to come and go just as his services as caddie permit him, so if there were no other means of earning a livelihood the caddie would go on the rates. At many seaside links, however, there are opportunities of fishing, and the dual trade of fisherman and caddie is very common in Scotland. I can see no objection to this system; the fisherman's life is a hard life, and a little variety does the man no harm, but only good. The objection is that winter fishing is the hardest sort of fishing, and it is the time that there is the least golf. Still there is in the case of the fisherman-caddie a double trade, and it is far better that there should be.

If your youthful caddie seems bent on devoting all his life to golf in some shape or other, he should be forced to become apprenticed to the local club-maker, who should initiate him in the mysteries of club-making and club-repairing. If he becomes good at this he stands a better chance of getting employed on a permanent place as professional to a club. If the club is a prosperous one he has plenty of club-making, and will have to employ several men in the shop, while he has only to supervise. This will give him time for playing golf, and there are many cases where a partnership concern is started, and a fine golfer takes into partnership an equally good club-maker, and the result is most profitable, though I may be excused if I think the man who plays has a better time than the man who is in the shop. But there is money in it, as Mr. Gradgrind would say, and there are many more unpleasant ways of earning a livelihood than a club shop. It smells so nice and is so clean, there is so much gossip going on, and the ways of golfers are so varied, and the agonised endeavours of many to get a club to suit them and make them good players is so profitable to the club-makers, and is moreover an idiosyncrasy so easy to encourage, that, on the whole, these dealers have a very good time.

Cricket and golf are the two games where professionals and amateurs can mix and play with each other with perfect freedom. There are some sports where the thing is impossible. Rowing and athletics are either one thing or the other: if it is desirable to settle the question whether A, a professional runner, or B, the great amateur, is the best over a mile, there is no way of doing it except by A becoming an amateur, or B a professional. But any golf amateur can play a professional if he has no objection to pay them the proper fee, and he may go so far as to bet to a moderate amount with his opponent. It is the case, I hear, that money does not by any means always pass at the end of these games, but a ball is frequently the medium of exchange, and the contango system is frequently adopted without payment of interest. But foursomes and singles are frequently played on the mixed plans, and it is a good thing for the game that such is the case. On the whole, I consider the life of a professional golfer, who is steady and can make clubs, is as pleasant a life as can be spent by a man of that class, and is by no means the least profitable.

 

1. The picture of Alick, an old Scotchman who was employed by the Blackheath Golf Club for the first forty years of this century, is a poetical illustration of the old-fashioned caddie. If the honest truth be told, these old Scotch caddies could not be described as famous for sobriety, though I hope old Alick was an exception.