We may not think that in the coming year we are going to be better than ever we were, but we are sure that we are going to be better than last year.  That pleasantly fatuous belief never really leaves us, but it flames up more brightly than usual on the first of January, because that day is like the ninth hole in a round.

How often when we start playing very badly we say that we shall do better after the turn, and how often our words come true.  We want just that definite turning point to set us on the right road and the New Year supplies us with it.  On any ordinary summer day of the year if we go to bed slicers we do not expect to wake up driving with a slight, beautiful and controlled shaded draw; but as we take our bedroom candlestick with yawn on the night of December thirty-first, there seems nothing in the least improbable about such a miracle.

Bernard Darwin

New Year’s Eve Cheer

American Golfer, 1933