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Introduction
In 1880, England had twelve golf courses: by 1914 there were over a thousand. Writing just after the Great War ended, A. A. Milne (of Winnie-the-Pooh fame) gave himself up to wondering what had made golf suddenly so popular south of the border.
WHEN he reads of the notable doings of famous golfers, the eighteen-handicap man has no envy in his heart. For by this time he has discovered the great secret of golf. Golf is so popular simply because it is the best game in the world at which to be bad.
Consider what it is to be bad at cricket. You have bought a new bat, perfect in balance; - a new pair of pads white as driven snow, gloves of the very latest design. Do they let you use them? No. After one ball, in the negotiation of which neither your bat, nor your pads, nor your gloves came into play, they send you back into the pavilion to spend the rest of the afternoon listening to fatuous stories of some old gentleman who knew Fuller Pilch.* And when your side takes the field, where are you? Probably at long leg both ends, exposed to the public gaze as the worst fieldsman in London. Remorse, anger, mortification, fill your heart; above all, envy — envy of the lucky immortals who disport themselves on the green level of Lord’s.*
Fuller Pilch (1803-1870) was one of the great batsmen of Victorian cricket, perhaps the finest of all before the coming of Dr W. G. Grace (1848-1915). Pilch played 229 first-class matches between 1820 and 1854.
Lord’s Cricket Ground in St John’s Wood, northwest London. It is named after cricketer Thomas Lord (1755-1832), and often referred to as ‘the home of cricket’.