“Tell you what I want to do, Smith,” said Harding, as we stood on the veranda of the club house, early this forenoon.  “I want to find some place where I can soak a ball as far as I can and not have it stopped by a hill or a brook, or something like that.  I haven’t been over this place yet, but isn’t there some smooth, level place where a ball would naturally roll a quarter of a mile or so if you hit it good and hard?”

“The eighteenth hole is six hundred and thirty-two yards—­one of the longest in the country,” I said, “and it is smooth as a barn floor after you carry the railroad tracks.  That is a long carry, and most players go short and take the tracks on their second shot.”

“Six hundred odd yards,” he mused.  “Let’s see; over a third of a mile, eh?”

I said that it was, and a par hole in six.

“Anybody ever drive it yet?” he asked.

“Drive it?” I repeated, laughing.  “Well, I should say not!  I have reached the green in three only twice in all the times I have played it, and am well satisfied to be there in four.”

“That proves nothing to me,” he said, looking me over, “but you’re a pretty husky-appearing chap at that.  You’re nearly six feet, aren’t you, Smith?”

“A quarter of an inch more than six feet in my stockings,” I said.

“And how much do you weigh?”

“One hundred and eighty-five.”

“You’d ought to be able to drive a ball farther than you do,” he said, with the air of one who had mastered the game in all its details.  There is not a man in the club who can consistently out-drive me, and I’ll wager that Kirkaldy himself cannot average ten yards more than I do, but what was the use of arguing with Harding?

It was easy to see that this magnate actually believed that his first stroke at a golf ball was no accident, and was confident that with a little practice he could far surpass that terrific drive of two hundred and seventy yards.  But though I well knew what was coming to him I held my peace.

I asked Kirkaldy if he had ever known of a happening similar to Harding’s now famous drive.  He said he could not recall when a duffer had reached so great a distance, but it was not unusual for a husky novice to drive a few good balls before he began to attempt an improvement of a natural, but of course crude, stroke.

“But,” I asked Kirkaldy, “how did Harding manage to drive it so far?”

“Strength and luck, mon,” said our Scotch professional, “the more luck.  It war th’ same as when ye won a match with me by makin’ th’ last three holes in less than bogy.  Luck, mon, is yer truest friend.”

I think Kirkaldy is right.

“I never like to take up a thing unless it is difficult,” said Harding, as we started for the eighteenth tee.  “I like to do the things other men say cannot be done, and without blowing my own horn I have done a few of them.  I am fond of work, but when I play I play with all my might.  The boy who is not a good player will never make a good worker.  You take a boy who is playing baseball, for instance.  I can watch a game among youngsters and pick out those who are likely to win out later on in life.”