Love Among the Chickens · Chapter
Scientific Golf explained
Jeremy Garnet prepares to face Professor Derrick in the final round of the Combe Regis Golf Tournament.
What happens
Jeremy Garnet prepares to face Professor Derrick in the final round of the Combe Regis Golf Tournament. He devises a cruel scheme to toy with the professor, letting him almost win before snatching victory, as revenge for the professor's opposition to his courtship of Phyllis. Garnet executes his plan ruthlessly, winning hole after hole while the professor's composure crumbles. He then decides to let the professor win eight holes in a row to build false hope before delivering the final blow.
Themes in this chapter
Optimism vs. Reality
Garnet's confident scheme to toy with the professor contrasts with the professor's shattered expectations and deteriorating performance, highlighting the gap between hope and actual outcome.
Love and Courtship
Garnet's ruthless golf strategy is directly motivated by his desire to win Phyllis's hand, using the match as a means to punish her father and prove his worth.
Comedy of Misadventure
The professor's golfing disasters—topping the ball, landing in a ditch, and hewing at it in fury—are played for comic effect, as is Garnet's cold-blooded plotting.
Characters to notice
- Jeremy Garnet
Narrator and protagonist; devises a scheme to psychologically torment Professor Derrick during their golf match as revenge for blocking his romance with Phyllis.
- Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge
Briefly appears in the fowl-run; when a messenger arrives with a letter, Ukridge vanishes, fearing it is a bill.
- Professor Derrick
Garnet's opponent in the golf tournament; cold and forbidding, he suffers visibly as Garnet beats him hole after hole, his golf game deteriorating into wild frustration.
- Phyllis Derrick
Mentioned by Garnet as the reason for his vendetta against the professor; he asks after her health, provoking the professor's ire.
- Bob
Garnet's dog; receives Garnet's confidences about his golf scheme, wagging his tail cheerfully as Garnet explains his plan.
Key passages
“I shall nurse the professor. I shall play with him. Do you understand the principles of match play at golf, Robert? You score by holes, not strokes.”
Garnet explains to Bob that he plans to manipulate the professor by keeping the match close until the end, then beating him.
Garnet reveals his strategy of psychological warfare on the golf course.
“I shall toy with the professor, Bob. I shall let him get ahead, and then catch him up. I shall go ahead myself, and let him catch me up. I shall race him neck and neck till the very end.”
Garnet outlines his plan to create a tense, back-and-forth match before ultimately winning.
The scheme is designed to maximize the professor's agony.
“I knew that, if I scraped through by the smallest possible margin, his appetite would be destroyed, his sleep o' nights broken.”
Garnet acknowledges that a narrow defeat would devastate the professor's peace of mind.
Garnet is fully aware of the emotional toll his plan will take.
“He waggled his club over it as if he were going to perform a conjuring trick.”
The professor's pre-shot routine was unusually elaborate and hesitant.
Garnet observes the professor's nervousness before his first shot.
“I glanced at my opponent out of the corner of my eyes. The man was suffering. Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead.”
Garnet notices the professor's physical distress as he falls behind in the match.
The professor's agony is visible and satisfying to Garnet.
“A merciful local rule, framed by kindly men who have been in that ditch themselves, enacts that in such a case the player may take his ball and throw it over his shoulder, losing a stroke.”
A local golf rule allows players to escape a ditch by taking a penalty stroke.
The rule is presented as a humane concession for those who have suffered the same fate.
