Speed

Two aged golfers, bunting their balls in a hollow of the course of the St. Louis Country Club, were startled by the sudden apparition of a figure on a distant hill. Cut against the sky, there was nothing in the silhouette (it was that of a lean youth in golf clothes, carrying a club in his hand) that would itself have caused alarm. But instead of the measured stride of the golfer, this youth employed a furious, irregular lope. Suddenly, without a waggle, in a pause that hardly broke his stride, his club described an invisible arc; several seconds afterward, pushing its path through the lucent walls of summer air, the sound of his spoon-shot reached the two old men. The youth, running as hard as he could, disappeared behind the hill; reemerged, a short time after, upon another; played one of his polo-like strokes--was off again. The two dotards looked at each other. Without a word, but trembling slightly, they turned and began to hurry as fast as their gout-stiffened limbs would carry them, toward the clubhouse. Who but a thief or a nonmember would run around the course as if he were afraid of his shadow? Who but a rumdum or a simpleton would play his ball without taking a stance? It was clearly a matter to be reported. Some 20 minutes later the two dotards, traveling at their turtle pace, reached the 18th green, approached the greenskeeper.

"How long ago did you see this fellow?" asked the latter anxiously, when they had told their story.

The stouter of the two curmudgeons produced a watch shaped like a turnip.

"Twentythree minutes and 45 seconds," he answered with the angry precision of the elderly.

"That was just about the time he left the ninth tee," said the greensman with a smirk. The old gentlemen then learned from him how the figure they had seen was that of Frank Watts Jr., who, taking a bet that he could play 18 holes over the difficult course in 45 minutes and turn in a card of 85 or better, had gone out in 21 minutes with 38 strokes, come in with the same number of shots in 23 min. 45 sec., establishing a record of 44:45 and 82 for 18 holes which he challenges other golfers to beat. He traveled a distance of four miles. The amount of his wager was $25. The two, thinking with a twinge of melancholy of the three hours they had spent in their morning round, moved their old shanks, somewhat pathetically, into the clubhouse.