A Golfing Idyll; Or, The Skipper's Round with the Deil On the Links of St. Andrews

A narrator, a woman who meets an elderly caddie called the Skipper, records his comic, Scots-dialect ballad recounting a late-night golf game on the St Andrews links in which he wagers with a mysterious challenger who proves supernatural. The poem combines rollicking vernacular dialogue, episodic recollections of clubroom drinking and local characters, surreal incidents on the green, and touches of repentance and local color. Written in rhyming doggerel and punctuated by framed anecdotes and illustrations, the piece mixes folklore, humor, and moral reflection while preserving the rhythms and jargon of the links and its caddie community.