Mr. Punch's Golf Stories

Mr. Punch's Golf Stories by J. A. Hammerton, 1841, contains 136 illustrations. Designed to provide in a series of volumes, each complete in itself, the cream of our national humour, contributed by the masters of comic draughtsmanship and the leading wits of the age to "Punch," from its beginning in 1841 to the present day. There are few pastimes that supply their followers with more innocent merriment than is afforded by "the royal and ancient." Certainly no outdoor game can make the neophyte feel more utterly worm-like in his ability, for it is the peculiar quality of golf to appear to be absurdly easy to the onlooker and preposterously difficult to the unpractised player. It may be taken that there is no better way of reducing a man's self-conceit than to place him on the teeing ground for the first time, present him with a driver and invite him to strike a little rubber-cored ball to a distance of 200 yards in a given direction.