Hasty Pudding and the Proper Game of Golf

Old Tom Morris and
Young Tom Morris,
about 1870-75.
From Wikipedia

Golf, you know, was invented in Scotland, by men.  Real men; men who were committed to finding the least reliable way to follow a small ball around a meadow.  It would have made sense to fire the ball from a slingshot, or a loudmouth shotgun, but that would have provided some sense of direction and distance, and golf never was intended to be easy. That is why the links courses of Scotland have all those shallow wells all over the most likely places for a ball to come to rest.  In this country, we have sand traps; shallow declivities lined and manicured with sand imported from a beach in Tahiti, or somewhere.  In Scotland, they dig wells, and sometimes they line them with shaggy chunks of sod, dug from the lower levels of what they call "the rough".  The rough is pastureland where the cattle refuse to graze, since they prefer the pretty grass on the greens themselves.  

It is not a coincidence that there are no women in the picture, above.  It is nearly impossible to hit a two iron above and around a hoop skirt.  It is not that the Scots are opposed to women playing golf.  If Scottish women--widows, most likely--have a golf course at home, they are certainly encouraged to hack about in it, especially if they do not have enough cattle or sheep to keep the property properly grazed.  

And everyone knows that the Scots have been pressed for time and attention that might otherwise have privileged them with the leisure to debate the merits of allowing one or two women to play alongside (or behind) Old Tom and Young Tom.  There is always the question of whether to secede from the British Empire, and leave the English alone to muddle along without the benefit of proper alcohol.  There is the problem of not enough immigrants to dig the wells on their golf courses, or who, after they dig them, want to stay in Scotland, get a proper education, and marry the local lasses.  And then there is Prince Philip:  the Duke of Edinburgh, husband to the Queen of Everything Ever Since the Flood.  He won't stay in England!  And when people ask him a question, he tries to answer! Oh, well, they are all German, anyway!

The Scots have nothing against women, but golf is properly a man's game, and a proper man's game needs an proper man's club and clubhouse.  It will probably happen, in time, that women become members, because that sort of thing is going around, but there is no need to be hasty, is there, Pudding?