Quotation about golf and a question about a word with missing letters W-m-n

[Garson O'Toole]

Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even
smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.

The saying above is often attributed to Winston Churchill. The
earliest variant I have located is in Punch magazine in 1892.

[PLDG] 1892 January 16, Punch, Confessions of a Duffer, Page 35,
Column 1, Punch Publications Ltd., London. (Google Books full view)

http://books.google.com/books?id=u_kCAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Golf+is+not%22#v=snippet&

Almost everybody now knows that Golf is not Hockey. Nobody runs after
the ball except young ladies at W-m-n! The object is to put a very
small ball into a very tiny and remotely distant hole, with engines
singularly ill adapted for the purpose. There are many engines. First
there is the Driver, a long club, wherewith the ball is supposed to be
propelled from the tee, a little patch of sand.


List members have generously helped to decipher terms with missing
letters in the past. I think that the term: "W-m-n" probably refers to
Wimbledon the location of the oldest tennis tournament in the world
which has been played since 1877. Is that plausible? Any idea why
letters have been removed?

Here is a link to an extended discussion of the quotation on my blog
if this topic interests you:

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/01/golf-small-hole/

Thanks, Garson

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