"The green's a bit fast."
The put ran slowly up to the hole, and stopped four inches short.
"By heavens! why didn't I put over it!" said Booverman, brandishing his
putter. "A thirty-foot put that stops an inch short--did you ever see
anything like it? By everything that's just and fair I should have had a
three. You'd have had it, Picky. Lord! if I only could put!"
"One under three," said Pickings to his fluttering inner self. "He can't
realize it. If I can only keep his mind off the score!"
The seventh tee is reached by a carefully planned, fatiguing flight of
steps to the top of a bluff, where three churches at the back beckon so
many recording angels to swell the purgatory lists. As you advance to
the abrupt edge, everything is spread before you; nothing is concealed.
In the first plane, the entangling branches of a score of apple-trees
are ready to trap a topped ball and bury it under impossible piles of
dry leaves. Beyond, the wired tennis-courts give forth a musical, tinny
note when attacked. In the middle distance a glorious sycamore draws you
to the left, and a file of elms beckon the sliced way to a marsh,
wilderness of grass and an overgrown gully whence no balls return.
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