The haunted major

the long version

"Inspired by the new craze for golf that had developed at the dawn of the 20th century, this comic story recounts the efforts of sports-mad Major Gore to beat Lindsay, a young golf champion. The Major receives supernatural assistance in his cause from the ghost of Cardinal Smeaton, a Scottish renaissance figure who is still nursing a grudge against his opponent's family." - - Description by Peter Haining, in "A Century of Ghost Novels 1900 - 200" (Appendix to his book, The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories)