some yards off his long game. If all links were to be made to suit youth there would not be nearly so much enjoyment for the middle-aged. A great deal may be learned from the grand game of tennis as played before Pettitt so completely changed and, as many think, ruined the game. Mr. Heathcote was amateur champion for twenty-five years, and held it when he was fifty years old; old Barre was the best player in the world when he was fifty years old, and Edmund Tompkins was in the first flight at the same age. Now tennis is all rush and hit, and unless the rules are altered it will become as much a game for youth as football. This is a misfortune both from the point of view of the game itself and for the enjoyment it provides for its followers. Of the bad effect of the game by a too great predominance being given to score play something has already been said; but the time has come for protest when our golfing legislators are called upon to alter the rules in the interests of what I have called the brutal efficiency side of the game.
In golf there is a rule that on the putting-green a ball in match play must not be lifted—
