The announcement that Harvard will this spring have the first officially recognized Freshman golf team of its history would have less meaning if it did not contain restrictions which wound the importance of golf in the minds of the athletic authorities. The checks upon the innovation-that the schedule will be limited to two games and that the Freshman team will play under the same adverse conditions which have in the past, confronted the University team-seem to be justified in the case of golf.

Golf is not a game which Harvard from the point of view of either time or money. The situation of the University is such that it is safe to say there will never be golf course near enough to the Yard to put golf in a class of popularity with any of the major sports and the majority of the minor. The absence of financial backing from the Harvard Athletic Association is perfectly explicable to all who realize the stringency in this respect that has been forced upon the Association by its building plans.

In its status as a minor sport golf resembles polo. The machinery of each makes it caviar to the general, and thus neither has any financial rating in an athletics-for-all policy. Although golf must be content with its present lot in the Harvard budget, one indirect benefit has appeared. Greens fees and expensive course privileges may have put' golf on an undemocratic basis, but the sport not enjoyed by the many is given a clear position of importance that is, if nothing else, honorary.