ABSTRACT
IT has often been said that bunkers are not placed on golf-courses to catch bad shots, but to punish shots that are not quite good enough. The golfer, when he finds his ball deep in a bunker, should remember this sage remark, and draw much consolation from it. But does he? Does one golfer in a hundred, or one in ten thousand? I am afraid not. Like the ardent politician who damns the Government, not because it is a bad or corrupt Government, but because damning the Government is a popular pastime, so the golfer damns bunkers, not for fulfilling their purpose, but just because they are bunkers. Indeed, it has become a kind of ritual to use strong language when bunkered. Such a mental attitude is all wrong. At the very time when a golfer wants most to have himself in hand, to use all the mental faculties of which he is possessed, to plot and plan serenely, he flies into a rage. Of course, with the obvious result: seizing his niblick, the golfer rushes towards the bunker, leaps into it, as an old-time armoured knight would throw himself into the fray, and without a moment’s thought hews the ball out of the bunker. Where? Where, doesn’t matter.
