A Special Dozy, Cozy Kind Of Dormy House

Lives in a dormy house, does he?" some reader may exclaim. "Poor fellow, he must hear all the hard-luck stories of all the golfers. I'm sorry for him."

Well, it is really not as bad as that. The name of dormy house conveys to most people a near neighbor of a golf club if not part of the golf club itself. But my dormy house is a little different from the rest.

It is close to the Land Gate in the lovely old town of Rye in Sussex, where one illustrious American, Henry James, made his English home. It is full of history, for it is one of the two "ancient towns," its neighbor Winchelsea being the other, which, with the five Cinque Ports, provided in olden days the very heart and nucleus of the British navy. Today the sea has receded from Rye, even as it has from Sandwich, and left it with its narrow cobbled streets, huddled around the church on the top of a dry cliff, with the water a few miles away.

Naturally, the links are by the sea, which once no doubt rolled over them, and where the sea has been are to be found the best of golf courses. No human architect, with the wealth of Midas ready to his hand, could imitate this ideal; not only the main features, the lines of sandhills with the valleys between, but all the thousands of smaller undulations, the plateaus and craters in miniature, which go at once to make up that golfing perfection and to make us on our bad days complain that a good drive has given us an unjust lie. And Rye, in the minds of all who know it, is one of the noblest of links, true seaside, having all the qualities whether bold or subtle which heart can desire and with a sense of peace and privacy which a championship course can scarcely boast. Rye, thank heaven, is not a championship course and never will be. The narrow tortuous road that leads to it, together with geographical difficulties, puts it out of the question for any crowded festival, and for that matter I think the members would let the champions come there only over their dead bodies. So it remains like a man who, without titles or honors, is yet universally accepted as an equal in the most distinguished company. It is famous without any of the accompanying disadvantages of fame.

LOVE AND FORTUNE

The course was laid out in the '90s by Harry Colt, and the first time the world heard of it was when a match was played there between Harry Vardon and Freddie Tait, two names that always made news. It was not very long after this and well in the gutty age that I paid my first visit to the links and to the dormy house. At once I fell in love with both, and by good fortune an uncle had then, like a fairy godmother, given me a handsome tip. This, with a reckless wisdom, I devoted to entrance fees and subscriptions otherwise beyond my means, and the place has been near my heart ever since.

This old friend of a dormy house, to which I have now returned for good, is a pleasant, ancient house on the cliff top. It is a separate institution from the golf club, though most of its members, but not all, are golfers, for it is also a local social club. By the time the golfers have finished their rounds and returned here for tea and crumpets by the billiard-room fire their acute yearning for sympathy is over. They tell me those hard-luck stories, which I mentioned, only if I ask for them, and this I do with judicious restraint.

To many American golfers the notion of staying in a dormy house may, for all I know, convey visions of splendor, the mingled splendor of country club and hotel. It is now, alas, so long since I was in America that my memories of staying in golf clubs may appear those of a golfing Rip Van Winkle. I stayed twice, in 1913 and 1922, at The Country Club at Brookline. Both were memorable years, the first that of Francis Ouimet's victory over Ted Ray and Vardon (I can still hear the pattering of the rain and see the wet mist hanging about the trees), the second that of Jess Sweetser's championship. In 1922 I spent a very pleasant night at Pine Valley, which prided itself, unless I am mistaken, on an absence of women and a scorn of changing for dinner. At the National, where I visited in those same two years, I stayed elsewhere, but the rest of my companions of the first Walker Cup side, in 1922, were put up in a genuine dormy house called, I think, the Hen Coop.

Of my second stay at The Country Club I have one vivid memory. It was, I suppose, in time of Prohibition not wholly rigid. On my first night I had gone early to bed, but was awakened by a member. He was very sorry, but thought he had left a bottle of whiskey under my pillow. And so he had, though I had not perceived its outline, and after its return we parted with mutual apologies.

The atmosphere of those hospitable American clubs was, as I remember it, essentially one of comfort; of unceremonious snugness. We here at the dormy house deem ourselves very snug. We live under the matriarchal care of a lady who is an admirable cook and is reinforced by two men servants. Not only are we cozy but we seem to me, and I have been a member for well over 50 years, essentially immutable.