Though winter this year has allowed some late-, and early-, season golf, in many areas of the country, golfers must wait for sunnier and warmer days to return. Reprinted here, from “The Golfer” of January 1903 is a lament for those days.
Shut-in Golfer
By Allan P. Ames
The course that once was gay with green
Is shrouded all in white;
From biting gusts the sign boards lean,
Their moanings fill the night;
The plain lies level, naught to show
Where bunkers used to rise;
Along the dreary waste of snow
No hazard greets the eyes.
Locked are the link’s, and where the key
Is buried none can say.
Alas! that such a change should be;
Alas! the cruel day
That drove me from the hills and streams
And all the heart’s desire.
To empty longings, idle dreams.
Shut in before the fire !
Oh, will it ever come again—
That gracious, golden weather—
Those rangings over field and fen
When we two played together?
For then I had a single foe—
The omnipresent caddie;
But now, a score of dancing beaux
And – tempore! – her daddy.
For while I played in eighty-three.
He was a humble “duffer”:
Then cordially he greeted me,
But now his voice is gruffer.
However shines the sun, methinks,
These days are dark and gruesome,
Why cannot all the world be links,
And life and endless “twosome”?