Mannerisms At The Card Table

Mannerisms must be avoided like the plague. If there is one thing worse than the horrible " post-mortem, " it is the incessant repetition of some jarring habit by one particular player. The most usual and most offensive is that of snapping down a card as played, or bending a " trick" one has taken into a letter " U, " or picking it up and trotting it up and down on the table.

Other pet offenses are drumming on the table with one's fingers, making various clicking, whistling, or humming sounds, massaging one's face, scratching one's chin with the cards, or waving the card one is going to play aloft in the air in Smart Alec fashion as though shouting, " I know what you are going to lead! And my card is ready! " All mannerisms that attract attention are in the long run equally unpleasant—even unendurable to one's companions.

Many people whose game is otherwise admirable are rarely asked to play because they have allowed some such silly and annoying habit to take its hold upon them.

The Good Loser

The good loser makes it an invariable rule never to play for stakes that it will be inconvenient to lose. The neglect of this rule has been responsible for more " bad losers" than anything else, and needless to say a bad loser is about as welcome at a card table as rain at a picnic.

Of course there are people who can take losses beyond their means with perfect cheerfulness and composure. Some few are so imbued with the gambler's instinct that a heavy turn of luck, in either direction, is the salt of life. But the average person is equally embarrassed in winning or losing a stake " that matters" and the only answer is to play for one that doesn't.

Golf

Golf is a particularly severe strain upon the amiability of the average person's temper, and in no other game, except bridge, is serenity of disposition so essential. No one easily " ruffled" can keep a clear eye on the ball, and exasperation at " lost balls" seemingly bewitches successive ones into disappearing with the completeness and finality of puffs of smoke. In a race or other test of endurance a flare of anger might even help, but in golf it is safe to say that he who loses his temper is pretty sure to lose the game.

Golf players of course know the rules and observe them, but it quite often happens that idlers, having nothing better to do, walk out over a course and " watch the players." If they know the players well, that is one thing, but they have no right to follow strangers. A player who is nervous is easily put off his game, especially if those watching him are so ill-bred as to make audible remarks. Those playing matches of course expect an audience, and erratic and nervous players ought not to go into tournaments—or at least not in two-ball foursomes where they are likely to handicap a partner.

In following a match, onlookers must be careful to stand well within bounds and neither talk nor laugh nor do anything that can possibly distract the attention of the players.

The rule that you should not appoint yourself mentor holds good in golf as well as in bridge and every other game. Unless your advice is asked for, you should not instruct others how to hold their clubs or which ones to use, or how they ought to make the shot.

A young woman must on no account expect the man she happens to be playing with to make her presents of golf-balls, or to caddy for her, nor must she allow him to provide her with a caddy. If she can't afford to hire one of her own, she must either carry her own clubs or not play golf.