The Golfer courts a mistress as fickle as she is bewitching. She leads him on with little favors that fill him with hopes of conquest. Then... she scorns him and humiliates him (in front of his friends, too) and leaves him despairing. Sometimes he hides his despair in rages. He declares, "that's it, I'm skinless" then gives his clubs to his brother-in-law. He is through, finished, Kaput!

He comes back, of course. And then, suddenly the miracle happens. The despairing man who could do nothing right, now can do no wrong. He sends for his clubs. He's Back! He feels, as the song says, "now at last I know the secret of it all!"

The bewitcher leads him on. Now he becomes arrogant and conceited again. He sees things clearly. He is Murder, In-corporated off the tees, dead accurate on his approaches, a veritable Ben Crenshaw for accuracy on the greens. In his great joy, he finds he loves all his fellow men, especially those in his own foursome. He wants to share his newly discovered secrets. He gives them freely to his companions. He is a Daddy Warbucks for generosity!

But the game, the bewitcher, will take care of him. At the moment when his confidence is highest, his happiness indescribable, she will let him have it. He will slice his drive, he will blunder his way back onto the fairway and into a trap, he will four-putt the green. He will be chastened. He will know humility again.

Sidney L James (from the forward in Hogans Book "Five Lessons, The Modern Fundamentals in Golf"