The Harvester World: Volume 8, number 11, November 1917

              Keep out of the rough
 by T.C. Hollenberger
 Golf grounds, or links, consist of the follow¬ ing: Tees, the points from which you drive the ball; Fairways, the stretches of smooth ground down which you are presumed to send the ball towards the goal; Putting Greens, beautiful swards of closely cropped, soft, velvety grass, thirty to forty feet square, situated 150 to 600 yards from the Tee. In the center of the green is the cup, a receptacle about four inches in diameter, into which you are expected to drop the ball on your third to fifth stroke.
But these things are not all that belong to a golf course. The game would be too easy and uninteresting were there nothing more. Athwart the enchanting fair¬ way that stretches before you there looms a hideous bunker, a ridge of dirt six feet high or more, covered with long grass, sometimes with a sand pit on either side. You stand at the tee with driver in hand and wonder if you can clear the troublesome thing. You decide that you can and with a mighty sweep of the club you send the ball flying down the course. You watch it intentl)'. You conclude it is going over, when— plunk—it strikes the bunker and rolls back into the sand pit.
Now you are in the worst sort of trouble. You almost despair. But with the determination of the courageous golfer you plunge at the ball with your nib¬ lick and with one stroke, if you are lucky, but with a dozen if you are unlucky, you are out and over and on the fairway again.
You now drive at the ball once more and confidently believe this stroke will land your ball on the green; but, lo!—your stroke was not perfect and your ball slices off to one side and rolls into a sand pit you had not noticed —a trap placed there purposely to catch the careless and indifferent player. You lunge at the ball in the sand with your mashie. Your stroke was too hard and the ball not properly struck. It rolls across the fairway into the long grass—called by golfers "The Rough"— which will be found usually bordering both sides of the fairway and extending in front of all tees for about forty yards. "The Rough" is shunned by golfers more than any other hazard on the course and is hated worse than sin. It is productive of the worst sort of tempers. You chop in the long grass several times at the ball, and finally land it on the green and then you are down in the cup in a couple more strokes—if you are a good golfer.
The game of golf and the game of life are in many
respects strikingly analogous. They touch at many points. The young man starts out in life, perhaps, fresh from college, with great hope, and everything about him is as roseate as a golf course on an autumn day. Before him stretches the long smooth fairway of life, and it looks easy to negotiate. But possibly some evening, with convivial companions he lingers too long at the bowl and takes his first downward step. He has gotten into his first "bunker," and the difficulty he has in getting again on the fairway of life is exasperating beyond measure. However, he is over and off again and his first mis-step happily forgotten. But he soon finds himself again in the midst of a temptation he cannot resist. He filches his employer's money and drops this time into a "sand pit" by the wayside. He finds much difficulty in getting out. Friends desert him, the law takes hold of him, he is imprisoned, • his reputation is gone, and he is in trouble indeed. The young man succumbing to divers temptations along life's fairway will never reach the goal. A poor golfer may in time, but a weak young man, never. False¬ hood, deception, profanity, intemperance, extravagance and similar vices, represent bunkers, sand pits and tall grass, or "The Rough" along life's fairway, which the careful and wise young man will skillfully avoid, if he will quickly reach his goal with clean hands and heart.
It is just as difficult we know for the young man to keep on the fairway of life as it is for the golfer to keep on the fairway of the links, but when he does the goal is reached equally easy and the reward is infinitely greater.
Golf is a great game, but life is a greater one.
The bunker lying across the fairway is sometimes greatly magnified to the amateur golfer. To him it looks like a real Matterhorn. Just so the difficulties in the way appear to the amateur in the game of life. There are no bunkers so high, no sand pits so deep, no grass so tall, that the golfer cannot avoid by a careful and determined effort, and no young man need fear the difficulties and temptations that beset him along life's fairway if he keep his eye determinedly fixed on the goal ahead.
The good golfer is a hard-hitter and the successful young man must also be one. The good golfer avoids trouble by keeping his ball straight. The young man can likewise avoid trouble by keeping himself straight; and above all things, let him icep out of the rough.
Harvester Press