The haunted major

"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)