Golf in the far east, St. Andrews Gazette and Fifeshire News, 7 september - 1872

Herkomst: St. Andrews Gazette and Fifeshire News, 7 september - 1872

Club: Batavia GC

Transcript:

Golf in the Far East.—A correspondent in Batavia, “An Old Madras Boy,” under date of July 10th, writes to us as follows:—It may interest some of your readers, and it will doubtless amuse others, to know, that, though thousands of miles divide us here from good old Scotland, and notwithstanding our having a continuous 90 degs. in the shade, our community is sufficiently mindful of its pastime, and possesses sufficient vitality and energy to admit of the organisation last week of a “Batavia Golf Club,” after having received from Bombay a small, but appreciable supply of clubs and gutties.
Out of the seven enthusiasts who have commenced the club, you may be surprised to learn that five are St Andrews players, the other two being Edinburgh men. We hope to enlist the sympathies of many more of our fellow countrymen here, and get them, though possibly more or less ignorant of the game, to join us, as we have a magnificent plain in the very heart of the fashionable quarter of the city whereon to play, and covering an area of very nearly a square mile. Unfortunately the hazards are insignificant, and are confined to a few ditches. As the railway runs along one side of the course, that may come in handy from time to time to interpose a puzzler to some unwary player.
For the present we have not been able to discover any rabbit holes, as there are no rabbits here, but snake holes may be found a valuable substitute. In imitation of our contemporaries (if I may so call them) of Bombay, we have a standing rule, that no member be allowed to play save in the uniform scarlet coat of the club; and you may guess the surprise of our worthy Dutch friends on seeing us yesterday, when the play formally opened, going along in couples in all the magnificence of our new toggery.
I anticipate no little trouble in preventing the swarms of little children promenading every afternoon round the King’s Plain, from what appears their instinctive desire of “prigging” our flags, which make a very fair plaything for half an hour, fast sufficiently long to admit of their being carried a few hundred yards from the holes and safely deposited in the neighbouring ditch; this is not pleasant.
The scarlet, too, may have raised in the timid ideas of a foreign invasion, but that will pass off—at least we hope so. The Customs authorities, accustomed to most articles of European manufacture, were somewhat at a loss in regard to our box of implements, which they were at first inclined to think had something of an agricultural nature about them, though the heads looked decidedly warlike, and the half mitrailleuse-ish. They ultimately succumbed to reason, possibly from a desire to hide their ignorance.