Golfing Around the World
Chapter 1. On the Tee
It is till quite an adventure for a Briton to take an extended voyage. The fact that anyone proposes a journey to India, Australia, or across the Atlantic, is a matter of profound and solicitous interest to his friends; and if it is a well-known or public personage who ventures to leave his native land the fact even gets into the papers.
To go round the world is, for an Englishman so eccentric a proceeding that it causes quite a stir amongst his acquaintances, and inevitably it results in his writing a book about it. I am no exception to the general rule, unless it be in the manner of my departure which was of the most casual description.
I dined comfortably at home and slipped across to Paris by the evening train from Waterloo. There is an agreeable absence of fuss about the Southampton route; one generally sleeps soundly, and is mildly irritated to be bustled off the ship by eight o'clock at Havre. None but genuine smugglers are even troubled by the urbane Customs officials and there is really a charming journey along the banks of the Seine.
And what a delight is lunch in Paris. Generally, the first really well cooked meal since your last vlsit.
The air and the people of Paris are exhilarating. I know of no other city in the world which has quite the same atmosphere of charm. I think it is due to the immense pride and appreciation which the Parisian takes in hie city.
Their calm "insouciance" and absence of preoccupation are very restful, and perhaps, after all, it is their knowledge of the art of feeding that creates a sense of true hospltality. One must, of course, abandon all tendency to criticism and sink one's British prejudices. When in France adopt the French point of view and you will be happy, remain British and you may be miserable.
France ie the most perfect Republic on earth, and the Frenchman, to the best of his ability, lives up to his national motto of "Libertë, Egalitë et Fraternitë I was once the recipient of a striking measure of Egalitë at the hands of a Parisian crowd. I was returning from witnessing a football matoh at Auteuil. The queue for the Metropolitan was a quarter of a mile deep and sixteen wide. Needless to say there were no taxis, so I had to recourse to a tram.
As everyone knows you go to a stopping place and pull a ticket off a lamp post. This ticket entitles you to take a seat when the number corresponding to it is called out by the conductor. Well ! I took my ticket, which bore the number 563 and duly awaited events. The waiting crowd was dense and two or three trams were filled up and departed towards Paris before my number came near the running.
My knowledge of French is not great and I remember listening with great intentness for "Cinq cent soixante trois" but the conductor rattled out the numbers so quickly that he was in the six hundreds before I could raise my hand. I made some inarticulate protest. Immediately a man standing near me politely asked what my number was. I showed him my ticket. He at once called out to the conductor that "Ce monsieur ici" had No. 563. The prooeedings halted, several others in the crowd took up my case with enthusiasm and in a moment way was made for me, and I was amid smile and hatraisings, most hospitably ushered into the last availnble seat on the tram.We in Britain are a kindly hospitable people, and so are our American cousins, but I venture to think that a similar incident would be almost unthinkable in London, beyond comprebension in New York, and deemed sheer lunacy in Chicago.
A journey by the P.L.M. is always an adventure, and when I woke at Lyons Perrache to observe a long lean arm thrust in through the open window of my saloon lit, I knew that other travellers and writers of shilling shockers concerning the Riviera had not lied about the matter. Nothing happened however, my pocket book was safely beneath my pillow. In due course I arrived at Hyeres and it was there that the idea which subsequently became an obsession, germinated
Golf clubs are a necessary item in ones baggage on the Rlviera. I do not say there is nothing else to do but assuredly the numerous charming courses now dotted there and there on the Cote d'Asur, afford an excellent excuse for visiting one's friends and extending the nimble week-end into ten days or a fortnight.
What with the weather, the crlsp sunny air, the good-tempered smiling little Provencal caddies and the keen sportsmanship of the golfing fraternity who frequent them the links at Hyeres are altogether delightful.
All you have to do is drive straight, approach true, and be deadly in your putting, and the Sylvan glades along the banks of the Gapeau, the hurdle bunker substitutes and the beautiful trees will have no terrors for you. And then on the day when nothing goes right, and you cannot steer a straight course for nuts, what a relief to motor through the aromatic forests on the slopes of the Maures, to lunch at the quaint little harbour of Le Lavandou, and watch the fishermen set out for the golden isles of Hyerea, for Porquerolles or Port Cros, for Little Bagneau, or the great gaunt island of Levant.
Or go further afield along the Cornishe towards the entrancing little bays of Cavaliaire and Cavalaire, and take your mid-day meal beneath the fragrant shade of mimosas, at an inn among the pine trees, and quaff the vin du pays; while the sapphire waters of the Mediterranian sparkle beneath you in the sunshine. There is nothing in art or nature quite so utterly rich or expensive looking as the blue of the Cote d'Azur.
I confess I do not like Bouillabaisse, but should it happen to be your favourite dish you can get it anywhere west of Hyeres, in the beautiful harbour of Toulon, at Tamaris, or those inimitable ports of Bandol and Sanary, tw!nlike in their similarity, and so like a stage setting of a romantic opera that one expects the curtain to drop at any moment.
It added greatly to the charm of my visit that the house in whioh I stayed was a reputed week-end haunt of Napoleon when he was Lieutenant Bonaparte of Artillery
If you ever lunch at the Cafe de La Rëgence near the Louvre where the Man of Destiny was wont to rehearse his victories on the chess board, you will get the same feeling, and it is a solemn fact that dining at the 'Cheshire Cheese' in the little alley off Fleet Street induces a marked loquaciousness which can only be attributed to the fact that it is still haunted by the shade of Doctor Johnson.
Before you leave Hyeres go across to the 'Presqu'ile de Giens. It is an inexpressibly neat description "Almost island" now clothed with romance by Joseph Conrad in his fine tale of "The Rover". There is a War Memorial there with an inscription which sums up the spirit of France in a phrase - "Aux Enfants de Giens Morts pour la France".
If you must go to Monte Carlo and be disillus!oned, go by road and put in a night at the Golf Hotel at Beauvallon. I hope you enjoy your round on the phantom links. Whether 'Golf' refers to the pleasures of an anticipated sport, or to the 'Gulf' of St. Tropez I cannot say, but I do know I would willingly revisit that fragrant spot.
Set back a hundred yards or so from the sandy beach, the house stands on a gently rising ground amid pines and eucalyptus. Behind it lies a fine open stretch of wild heathland interspersed with streams. The very name "Beauvallon" is a charm, but there are no golf links within twenty miles.
It so happened. that we had driven that day from Sospel the famous golf course on the mountain frontier of Italy, by the Grand Corniche and the Col d'Esterel, through the forest recently destroyed by fire. The green was just beginning to sprout amid the blackened stumps of trees, we had also passed patches of snow in the shadows by the roadside, rare visitant to the Cote d'Azur. That same evening I picked up in the library a volume of Smollett's Travels in France, and it appeared that exactly one hundred and fifty years before he had passed over the same road and noted the snow and the ravages of a great forest fire in the Esterels. Plus ca change plus c'est la meme chose: History does repeat itself, and nature is true to type.