GAMES AND CHARACTER.
" WHY does golf make men so intolerable P asked that amusing writer, Mr. Rotheran Hurst, in a recent issue of the County Gentleman, and proceeded to make further searching inquiries as to the influence of games and sports on the character of his fellow-creatures. Racing men, he remarks, "can be coarse enough, but they do seem to belong to the human family." Cricketers, be admits, " can be boring enough, with their slang and their records" ; but then "they, too, are men." There is "a basis of geniality" in the noisiness of footballers; and lawn tennis players, if they are occasionally frivolous, " mean well." But golfers ? " Why is it that one would rather walk than sit in a railway compartment with golfers?" The bitterness of the indictment is only equalled by the magnitude of the personal sacrifices of which Mr. Hurst must be supposed to be capable, in his determination to avoid those whose behaviour he finds "most tolerable and not to be endured." Could any picture be more distressing than that of a person ready to drop with fatigue, yet unable to travel by the train he had intended to catch, simply because he has caught sight through the carriage-windows of potential golfers in every compartment ? You are to imagine him striding sternly after the retreating guard's-van, in extremely affecting circumstances.
It is, of course, a designedly overdrawn picture. Nine Men out of ten who have the leisure to /play games play golf, and nine out of ten golfers who get pleasure out of the game radiate something of their contentment of spirit. But is anybody to deny that there is at any rate a scintilla of truth in Hr. Hurst's arraignment, or that he has designed a kind of cap which more than one golfer will recognise as capable of fitting a percentage, even if a minute percentage, of his neighbours ? Suppose that a pioneer of the. Imperial Anthropological Society of the most efficient Martian nation known to Mr., H. G. Wells were to discover for the first time a race of intelligent beings frequently occupied in " playing, games," what would he decide to be the main characteristics of the games of Great Britain ? He would select cricket and foot-. ball to begin with, as games distinguished in the first place by their elemental simplicity. Anybody can- play them ; all that is needed is a ball in the second case, and a ball and something to hit it with in the first. Next, he would notice that such games cannot be played by one man alone ; be must collect some friends to come and play with him. The game, then, and the enjoyment of it, belong equally to all the players, and if it is a game between sides of players, each side benefits by the success of the men composing it. That would be a description which would apply equally well to hockey, or lacrosse, or polo, or indeed any other game played with a ball with the exception of golf. The anthropologist would discover that golf stands alone among ball-games. It is, to begin with, instead of being simple and easily played, a game of considerable complications. It cannot be played anywhere, it necessitates the use of a multitude of instruments, it is played with the, smallest ball (" one for a child, two for an adult," Mr. Hurst quotes) used in any game except racquets, fives, or marbles, it entails none of the severe physical exercise which is part of other games; and, finally, it is played moderately well probably by more grown men than any other game in the United Kingdom.
Do any of these considerations suggest a connexion between the playing of a particular game and the development of peculiarities in a man's character, or judgment, or dress, or temper? If continual employment in an occupation is bound to produce certain visible results—if, for instance, you can geese a soldier or a sailor by his face, or can feel pretty sure that a gentleman with tight check trousers, a small Gladstone collar, a superb tie, and a yellow hat knows the winner of last year's Derby—it is arguable that the character of cricketers, or footballers, or golfers is determined by the amount of time which they are able to devote to their favourite game. Mr. E. V. Lucas, on some occasion during last year's cricket season, expressed his hope that the county to which a certain professional cricketer belonged would win the Championship, because that cricketer seemed to him to embody the spirit in which the game of cricket should be played. Strength, vitality, pluck, doggedness, and a face like the sun were the characteristics which appeared to him peculiarly admirable, and which must be argued, of course, to be peculiarly the result of playing cricket. Is there anything fanciful in the theory? No game demands more directness of purpose on the part of the players, none calls for the exercise of greater patience, or perseverance, or good temper. There is perpetual open onset and assault in the game, clearly seen and clearly repelled. In football, on the other band, although the possi- bilities of personal assault in the playing of it are considerable, the essence of the attack is to avoid the other side,—in fact, to dodge. Anybody could develop, on that line of reasoning, a serious comparison between the influences of the two games on the characters of the players continually engaged in them; might argue, for instance, that it is because cricket is a square, open business that to make a livelihood out of cricket is to belong to an honourable pro- fession; while, although there is nothing to be said against the character of many professional- footballers, profes- sionalism in football has led to corruption, bullying, deceit, and cheating of all kinds. Let all that be taken for granted, and than ask the question—Mr. Hurst's question,- remember, not ours, for we by no means endorse it or make it our own—" Why does golf make men intolerable ?" in full view of the circumstances in which it is played. Mr. Hurst here makes two or three suggestions. Has the golfer a suspicion? he asks. "Can he wonder sometimes if a man who carries such a quiverful of clubs with which to urge so small and white a ball over suburban fields is a spectacle for laughter ?" Or, perhaps, are golfers "overburdened by the con- sciousness of their legs"?—the game demanding knickerbockers and stockings, You gather that "the calves theory" is favoured, because "I have often found golfers to be _quite social, kindly creatures in their ordinary clothes, when, not, bent upon their 'port.'.', Or, finally, does the golfer suffer from supposing
that golf is a game to play which confers a certain social distinction? All that is amusing enough, but Mr. Hurst is really asking a question which ought to be differently worded. What he is, in fact; engaged in is a -study of the etiology of bores, not golfers. And if such a study is worth pursuing seriously, the predisposing causes developing a golfer into a bore would probably be discovered to be something like these. Golf, in the first place, is a game the essence of which is that the player plays for his own hand. He is engrossed from the first drive from the tee to the last putt in his own performances ; he need take, if be chooses, only the most perfunctory notice of the play of his opponent; and if be is inclined to watch himself and to think about himself in other occupations of life, assuredly he will become self-centred when he is playing golf. Next, golf is not a game out of which it is possible to get any pleasure unless you play it fairly well. The veriest duffer can get pleasure out of a game of cricket, but to be a duffer and to try to play golf on crowded links is to suffer depths of shame. There becomes added, then, to the golfer's stock of characteristics a soothing sense of self-satisfaction if he has advanced to a stage when he can play moderately well ; and,' though probably any person sound in wind and limb could learn to play golf tolerably, many middle-aged persons have discovered for the first time, in golf, a game which they can play with success, and are correspondingly elated by the fact. If, then, a man's game-playing tends to make him not only more self-centred, but self-satisfied, and in addition, he finds it necessary to talk,—then is evolved the golf-bore in full armour. But it is, fortunately, a rare evolution, and those who, like Mr. Hurst, are dismayed at having met many golfing bores forget that they would have met just as many bores if golf had never been invented. It would, indeed, not be difficult to argue that a man might be a bore not because of, but in spite of, an almost redeeming devotion to an unequalled pastime.
A further speculation is suggested. If each game can be argued to have its own influence on the character of the player, what of the character of the man who, having the opportunity, has never had the wish to play games ? Occa- sionally, of course, such men take no interest in games because they take no interest in anything; but it must be something more than a coincidence that they are much more usually extremely independent, and usually, too, essentially self-contained. They have no need for assistance from out- side to help them to live their life ; they themselves are enough for themselves; they burn their own smoke. The game- player is influenced by his game because he has room within him for the receiving of impressions from outside ; the non- game player has less room for outside interests, and less room, therefore, for the reception of influence from outside. He is not necessarily the nobler or the better for that, though he may be the- more remarkable; and be may, of course, be capable of becoming quite as intolerable a bore as the man wrapped up in game-playing.
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