Life — October 14, 1920 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Sgr "a, See SIG = hy Z Y 2 v Briggs: coop cracious Griggs (just starting in at golf): Maximum Inferionty E YONE has some favorite way of giving a twinge to his inferiority complex. It may be after-dinner speak- ing, or a bathing suit, or, perhaps, shaking hands with the butler, I do not quarrel with any of these methods, save on the grounds of mildness. Personally, when I want inferiority, I want it in a table- spoon, not a capsule. I want it without a single suspicion that it may be candy. That is why I always drive from the first tee on every golf course. There is a wave of psychology beating about the first tee. Perhaps it comes from an utter lack of privacy. Somehow, no first tee was ever built that was not plain- ly visible from the club veranda, the ten- nis courts, the garage, the kitchen and the caddie house. There is not even a geran- ium plant between you and every point of the compass. Somehow, everyone is respectfully curious. Somehow, the best driver in the state has just made the best shot of the season. Somehow, everybody by Hy aN +s fa Cll WELL, YOU SEE, DO THE TRICK, seems to be thinking that you are the best driver from some other state. You are enveloped in stage fright. Even the little spheroid which cost you a dollar (and which you are going to lose in the first body of water over a foot wide), even the inanintate golf ball, shares this sensation, You place it on a foundation frowned upon by the New Testament. For a moment it stays poised. You watch it fight the forces of gravity. You know in advance that it will roll off. It does. Furtively you lick your parched lips and try again. begin to wish you were anywhere else in the world, engaged in any other occupa- tion. You recall the ash man you saw but yesterday. With envy you remember his carefree look. Slowly you rise to your feet, and brace them firmly. Some faint scrap of advice flashes through your memory. You dig your feet into the sod, so as not to be swayed by the shock of impact. Then you wonder whether it is better to wrap your thumbs around the club or not. With increasing intensity you WHAT DO YOU TAKE AROUND SO MANY CLUBS FOR? !M-ALWAYS HOPING THAT ONE OF "EM WILL Once someone told you that one way was fatal to form. Which was it? In the silence that surrounds you, you glance cautiously over your shoulder. It never fails. A dozen of the club's fastest players are waiting behind you. Panic- stricken, repentant, you address the ball. What is the club you are holding in your hand? Already you have disgraced your- self. It is a putter. As you grasp your driver, a vague de- sire you have noticed before becomes clamorous, insistent. You must get away Then you remember that the golf ball must go with you. How well you know there is no drawing hack, no chance of recantation! As your club swings above your head, a vain hope surges through you, hope and futile anger. You shut your eyes... . —anywhere, And when you open them, you wonder whether you are capable enough to ship before the mast for a long ocean voyage. Some day a great scientist will prove in cold, conclusive figures the effect of the first tee on the inferiority complex of America comicbooks.coml