ASK DR. BOLI.

Dear Dr. Boli: While I agree with the Golf Network premise that a loud check pattern is necessary for distance and accuracy, can you please comment on the rumor that only an aggressive use of paisley will improve one’s “short-game” performance, specifically putting? ——Gratefully yours, J.H.T. Rumsford IV, Snodgrass Country Club.

Dear Sir: Dr. Boli has not played the ancient and invigorating game of golf since that unlucky day when his scheduled game with Mr. James A. Garfield was so cruelly cancelled by envious fate. In those days, the atmosphere of the game was entirely different. For one thing, the golf carts were powered by steam, and they made the most appalling din. It was very hard to concentrate even on so insignificant a task as setting the “ball” on the “birdie” in preparation for the “pitch.” It should also be remembered that proper lawn-mowers came to the game relatively late, so that in the time of the late President Garfield it was still traditional for the grass on the “field” to be waist-high or taller. This quite naturally made every “wicket” something of a challenge, and by the “seventh-inning stretch” one was usually quite exhausted. It was customary to take a light refreshment at that point, and how the champagne flowed! After that, one would take to to the “court” again for another “rally.” Often we would “hit” the “ball” into the “rough,” as it was called then, which was an area of bear traps, land mines, insurance salesmen, and other obstacles designed to make hitting the “ball” back to the “gridiron” more of a challenge. Many a caddy was lost in the “rough,” but those were prosperous times, and caddies were inexpensive and never in short supply. You may well imagine, considering the innate difficulty of the sport in those simpler times, what rejoicing there was if any player should be so fortunate as to make a “basket.” But Dr. Boli has become so caught up in reminiscences that he has forgotten your original question. Perhaps you could write and ask it again.