
A whim caused me to turn the car into the side road, which took us to a little nine holes’ course that was something to see. It was operated by a mountain hotel in a manner quite typical of those days when comparatively few resort courses were really first-class. Now on this particular course there was but one hole which could not be reached with a good tee sot, up-hill all the way for a good three hundred yards. Keep this hole in mind for we will be back to it.
As we got out from the car for a bit of stretch, close by the start of this hole (it could not with propriety be called a teeing ground for it consisted of a six-foot square platform of clay enclosed by two by fours) my eyes happened on a quaint little figure. Although I had never seen him before I recognized his description. He was he professional, a native of those parts who doubtless had never roamed far away from his own hearth-stone. When he did not “profess” golf he sometimes got out his scythe and cut the greens and frequently conveyed the cash customers from the station in an antiquated bus. Without a word to my companions I walked over to him and inquired if he was the professional.
“I am the Perfesser,” he answered with dignity.
“That being the case,” I ventured, “you give lessons for a cash consideration?”
He appraised me and replied. “Yep -- fifty cents in advance.”
As he disappeared to get a club and balls, there was the opportunity to observe him more closely. He stacked up about five feet two, over all (including his canvas hat): was held together principally by a pair of fireman’s suspenders, and ran generally to a long neck which terminated in a bird-like head. In the middle of the neck was the biggest Adam’s apple in the history of man. Indeed, he seemed to be built two ways from that gorgeous, palpitating Adam’s apple.
“Take off your coat,” he commanded, as he shoved into my hand the most terrific example of a Dreadnaught driver. “But I don’t want this lesson,” I hastened to explain. “Give it to my friend over there.” As I pointed to Ray, the Perfesser indicated that so long as he had the four bits one pupil or another was all the same to him. Ted, grasping the situation announced his readiness to begin but rather disappointed his mentor by refusing to remove his coat.