Golf Seminar: The New Book on Golf- Horace G. Hutchinson

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THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

EDITED BY HORACE G. HUTCHINSON

THE BADMINTON LIBRARY- GOLF

BY HORACE G. HUTCHINSON

With Contributions by LORD MONOREIFF,

The late Sir WALTER SIMPSON, Bart.,

The Right Hon. A. J. BALFOUR, M.P.,

ANDREW LANG, H. S. C. EVERARD,

and others.
With 90 Illustrations

FIFTH EDITION
Crown 8vo. Cloth. $2 net.

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

NEW YORK, LONDON, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA.

JOHN BALL, JUNR.
(Eight times Amateur Champion, once Open Champion)

With Contributions from

MRS. ROSS (n&e Miss MAY HEZLET),

BERNARD DARWIN, JAMES SHERLOCK,

A. C. M. CROOME, AND

C. K. HUTCHISON

ILLUSTRATED BY PHOTOGRAPHS

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

FOURTH AVENUE AND 30-TH STREET, NEW YORK

LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA

1912

EDITOR’S FOREWORD

THERE is no need of foreword from me to appraise
the team that has done the work of this book. The
names tell their good tale. All I want to say is a
word about the manner in which the work was done.
Mr. Croome, as a professional instructor of youth,
was allowed a free hand to tell people how to learn,
how to use the teachers* lessons, but all the other
writers were first given Mr. Darwin’s MS. for their
study and their text on which to say their own say
as a commentary, yet without prohibiting them all
liberty to give their private views expression. In
this way I hope and think this book has acquired a
unity which has not belonged to other golf books
composed by a team of writers. That is the special
claim with which it is put forth.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE : HOW TO LEARN, BY A. C. M. CROOME 3

PART I. ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION, BY BERNARD

DARWIN

PRELIMINARY NOTE . … 27

CHAPTER I. DRIVING :

(fl) FIRST PRINCIPLES OF THE SWING . . 29

(6) THB STANCE 41

(d) SOME FURTHER POINTS IN DRIVING … 58

CHAPTER II. THROUGH THE GREEN WITH WOODEN CLUBS 67

CHAPTER III. THE SPOON . . 74

CHAPTER IV. WITH IRON CLUBS …. 78

(a) THE HALF-SHOT 85

(6) THE MASHIE 92

CHAPTER V. IN HAZARDS . . . . . .105

CHAPTER VI. PUTTING 116

(a) THE PUTTING STANCE 128

(6) ON TAKING THE LINE 135

CHAPTER VII. ON FAULTS IN GENERAL . . .146

(a) PARTICULAR FAULTS 154

vii

viii THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

PACK

PART II. FROM THE PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF
VIEW, BY J. SHERLOCK

CHAPTER I. EDUCATIONAL . . 171

(a) COACHING 173

CHAPTER II. MY OWN GAME …. 187

(a) THE SWING 191

(6) IRON CLUBS 197

(d) PUTTING 206

CHAPTER III. CLUBS-THEIR SELECTION AND PUR-
CHASE 211

CHAPTER IV. TEMPERAMENT AND OTHER MATTERS 220

PART III. MEN OF GENIUS, BY C. K. HUTCHISON . 235

PART IV. FROM THE LADIES’ POINT OF VIEW,

BY MRS. Ross (nee Miss MAY HEZLET) . . 267

CHAPTER I. DRIVING …. 269

II. IRON PLAY . . 283

III. PUTTING . . 294

IV. THROUGH THE GREEN . . 308

V. APPROACH PLAY 318

VI. IN HAZARDS . .327

VII. MANY INVENTIONS . . 340

VIII. THE LITTLE THINGS THAT MATTER 355

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

From Photographs by Montague Dixon and Co., London; II. G. Stone,

Slough; A. Lee, Portrush ; The Sport and General Press Agency
Ltd., London; The Golf Monthly, etc.

JOHN BALL, JNR Frontispiece.

ONE-HANDED EXERCISE face page 34

DRIVING: TOP OF SWING, 37

A FINE FINISH 64

PICKING THE BALL UP FROM A HANGING LIE . 72

A FULL CLEEK SHOT: TOP OF SWING 80

FULL SHOT WITH MASHIE-IRON : TOP OF SWING 84

HALF-SHOT WITH IRON : TOP OF SWING 88

FINISH OF THE HALF-SHOT WITH THE IRON . 90
ORDINARY MASHIE SHOT WITHOUT CUT: TOP OF

THE STROKE 94

FINISH OF ORDINARY MASHIE SHOT … 96

MASHIE SHOT WITH CUT : TOP OF THE STROKE 98

FINISH OF MASHIE SHOT WITH CUT 99

RUNNING-UP WITH THE IRON …. 101

FINISH OF RUN-UP SHOT …. 102

PLAYING AN ‘ EXPLOSIVE ‘ SHOT OUT OF HEAVY SAND 108

AN ‘ EXPLOSIVE ‘ SHOT WELL OUT ON TO THE GREEN 109

DRIVING : SHOWING GRIP AND STANCE . . 189

DRIVING: TOP OF SWING …. 192

DRIVING: FINISH OF SWING …. 193

b **

x THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

IRON SHOT : STANCE AND GRIP . . . face page 197

IRON SHOT: TOP OF SWING …. 193

IEON SHOT: FINISH OF SWING … 199

MASHIB SHOT: STANCE AND GRIP … 201

MASTTTE SHOT: TOP OF SWING … 202

MASHIE SHOT: FINISH OF SWING … 203

PUTTING : STANCE AND GRIP …. 208

PUTTING: HOLING our 209

CAPT. C. K. HUTCHISON …. 235

HARRY VARDON …… 235

JAMES BRAID 237

J. H. TAYLOR 237

ALEC HERD M 238

A. MASSY 238

GEO. DUNCAN 239

J. SHERLOCK 239

EDWARD RAY, OPEN GOLF CHAMPION, 1912 . 241

H. H. HILTON (a little anxious) … 248

H. H. HILTON (quite pleased) …. 248

R. MAXWELL ……. 251

JOHN GRAHAM 261

E. A. LASSEN 254

ABE MITCHELL 254

L. 0. MUNN , 258

ANGUS V. HAMBRO, M.P 258

HON. M. SCOTT 260

FRED HERRESHOFF (America) . . . . 260

Miss RAVENSCROFT, OPEN LADY CHAMPION, 1912 267
Miss E. GRANT-SUTTIE’S ‘ FOLLOW-THROUGH ‘ AT

ST. ANDREWS 269

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi

GRIP FOE DRIVING : THUMBS ROUND . . face page 274

WRONG GRIP : AS SOMETIMES USED BY BEGINNERS 274

GRIP WITH THUMBS DOWN …. 274
BACK VIEW OF GRIP SHOWING HOW CLOSE HANDS

SHOULD BE TOGETHER …. 274

MEDIUM STANCE FOR DRIVE MRS. Ross . . 277

Miss DOROTHY CAMPBELL …. 279

Miss E. GRANT-SUTTIE 279

Miss C. LETTCH 280

Miss D. CHAMBERS 280

Miss STELLA TEMPLE, RUNNER-UP OPEN LADIES’

CHAMPIONSHIP, 1912 287

THE HEELS TOGETHER PUTTING STANCE Miss

VIOLET HEZLET ….. 294

MEDIUM PUTTING STANCE …. 301

Miss E. GRANT-SUTTIE ….. 308

Miss DOROTHY CAMPBELL …. 308
SHOWING HOW EYE SHOULD BE KEPT ON GROUND

AFTER BALL is HIT IN AN APPROACH . . 325

BUNKER SHOT MRS. R. A. CRAMSIE . . 332

BACK SWING FOR DRIVE Miss V. HEZLET . 340

Miss RAVENSCROFT, OPEN LADY CHAMPION, 1912 355

PROLOGUE

HOW TO LEARN
BY A. C. M. CEOOMB

HOW TO LEARN

THERE are many who hold that Golf, being an Art
and not a Science, cannot be learnt from books.
These never tire of narrating the fable of the Open
Champion and the Casual Stranger. The latter had
arranged to visit Walton Heath and to play with the
former, receiving odds of half a stroke. As the pair
walked to the first teeing-ground the visitor expressed
a confident hope that the allowance would prove
sufficient. He had, he said, been reading much in
the book of Advanced Golf, and believed that careful
study of its contents had improved his game by at
least four shots. ‘ Then I will give you two -thirds/
was the reply of the talented author of that great work.
Rightly apprehended, the moral of that fable is not
that the reading of didactic books on golf is necessarily
and in all cases a hindrance towards permanent progress
in the efficient use of the clubs : if that were so, the
writers of those books would be guilty of doing grave
disservice to their kind. It is true that numerous
cases can be cited of men who, after reading such
books, have for a time played worse than they did
before. That is because, while the knowledge acquired
in armchairs is in process of assimilation, the student

is apt, when he visits the links, to think overmuch

4 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

about his style and to neglect, at least partially, the
plain duty of hitting the ball. But in the long run
knowledge proves itself to be power on the golf-
course as elsewhere.

In every art theory is valuable only so far as it is
capable of being translated into practice. Nothing
but the theory of golf can be learnt from books. The
beginner who has taken a dozen lessons from an expert
golfer will certainly be able to beat another, his equal
in physique, who has read all the books about the
game which have ever been printed, but has not had
the will, or the opportunity, to avail himself of practical
instruction. Yet the books may contain the whole
truth and nothing but the truth, while the expert may
say much that is demonstrably wrong. But the
expert can hit golf-balls, books cannot. Thus the
former by his example can and does minimise the
evil effects of unscientific instruction orally conveyed.
The printed word has no corrective for wrong apper-
ception of its meaning by the mind of the reader.

When one sets out to tell incipient golfers ‘ How to
Learn,’ it is no bad thing that he should begin by
pointing out to them the true place of didactic books
in the scheme of education. Their function is to
clear the ground for the practical instructor. The
beginner ought to spend all the time and money
which he can afford on taking lessons from a profes-
sional. These lessons will be pleasanter for both
parties, and more profitable to the pupil if previous
reading has so informed his mind that he can rightly
understand what is said to him, and can correctly

HOW TO LEARN 5

analyse the example of the way to hit which is dis-
played for his edification. The science of the various
shots required to propel a ball from tee to hole will be
set forth in subsequent chapters by men excellently
qualified for the task, owing to their notorious skill
with club and pen. This chapter is intended to serve
merely as an introduction to their work. They, and
the professionals who show to learners how theory is
translated into practice, must inevitably use phrases
which have become conventional. Many of these
phrases are sufficiently illuminating, and need no
further explanation. The true inwardness of others
is only to be discovered by analysis and thought.
For an example of the latter let us take the recom-
mendation that in executing short mashie shots the
weight should be rather on the right foot. A common
spectacle on the links is that of a man, in an attitude
of great discomfort, trying to balance himself on the
right foot while he plays a little pitch up to the hole.
The precept above mentioned has been seared into his
brain, and his reverence for authority causes him to
stand as if he had lost a leg in a railway accident.
The fact is that the great golfer has a delicate sense
of balance. Consequently, when he causes his right
leg to support two or three pounds more than half his
total weight, he is acutely conscious of its unequal
distribution. Less gifted persons require stronger
evidence to prove to them that they are poised, as
they think, correctly. Consequently, when one of
them tries to rest his weight * rather on his right
foot/ he overdoes it by a stone or more, sways his

6 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

ill-balanced body as he makes his stroke, and produces
a more or less egregious foozle.

But before proceeding to discuss the exact meaning
of possibly obscure phrases, there is a matter of
supreme importance to be considered. It is the
difference between method and style. Method is
one and universal. Whenever a player who receives
the limit handicap hits a really good shot he employs
the same method as the Open Champion. The differ-
ence between the good strokes of the two men is one
of degree, not of kind. No doubt the spectacles
presented by the executants will be vastly different,
for each has his peculiar style, the collection of
idiosyncrasies which he superimposes on the essentials
of method. A bad style is one which makes difficult
the inclusion of all the essentials ; a good one is not
necessarily graceful, but it ensures that the club head
is presented square to the ball, and is at the moment
of impact travelling at the pace required to produce
the desired effect. Unfortunately a teacher is prone
to regard some point of his own individual style as
an essential of method, and learners, in their anxiety
to discover a royal road to success, seize with avidity
on ‘ tips ‘ which, when unscientific, retard rather
than accelerate their progress. For example, some
teachers find that they themselves can hit the ball
more accurately if they hold their clubs with part of
the right hand overlapping the left. They strongly
recommend, if they do not insist, that their pupils
should imitate their example in this respect, and
adopt the so-called * Vardon Grip.’ They do not

HOW TO LEARN 7

realise that the grip of the hands, more especially of
the left hand, is nothing more than the attachment
which links together the two parts of the club shaft,
the one part being the hickory stick, the other the
left arm of the striker. It is very helpful to the
beginner if he realises that everything from his left
shoulder to his club head is, properly speaking, shaft.
The progress of many towards steadiness of play is
retarded because they bend left wrist or left elbow in
hitting. No man has a hinge in the shaft of his
driver : it is not certain that the Rules Committee
would pass such a mechanical contrivance. Manifestly
a hinge in the human part of the shaft, though it would
escape the ban of authority, must be a cause of wildness.
Just as many people play well with hickory shafts
which are not exactly straight, so many drive far and
sure with their left arms bent. But this is the
important thing the amount of bend is constant
throughout the stroke. A pedant would call it
4 warp ‘ rather than bend. This little digression will
not, it is hoped, be regarded as irrelevant. To return
to the original point just as the head of a club may
be joined to a stick by a socket or a skear 1 if that is
the right way to spell the word so the stick may be
united to the arm by varying arrangements of the
left hand and its fingers. Some grip very much over,
like Braid ; others, including Mr. John Ball, go to
the other extreme. Some have the thumb down the
handle, others keep it round the leather. These are
differences of style, and people must discover which

1 More often spelled ‘ scare.’ ED.

8 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

variety suits them best and stick to it. Method de-
mands that the attachment between the two parts of
the club shaft should be strong enough to remain firm
when club head impinges violently on its objective,
and so adjusted that the club face is presented fair
and square to the ball. None can doubt that for
Braid, Taylor, Vardon and the strong-fingered gentry,
the overlapping grip is the best. Probably the
employment of it saves each of those three professors
as many as six or eight shots in the course of a year’s
play. Every beginner ought to experiment in the
use of it, if only for the reason that when a man has
once grown accustomed to it, he is less liable to alter
his grip insensibly and so introduce a cause of wildness
into his hitting. The question whether to overlap
or not is one which need not trouble the learner during
the first few weeks of his golfing life. But it is of great
importance that he should at once discover how far
over the handle of his club he should place his left hand.
The best method of making the discovery is that
recommended by Sir Walter Simpson in his book,
The Art of Golf. He says : ‘ Having placed himself
opposite the ball, let the player take hold of his club
loosely, but so that, if held short, the end of the shaft
would pass under the wrist bones. Let him swing it
backwards and forwards freely over the ball, de-
scribing an elongated eight, whose length is limited by
the locking-point of the wrist joints. After two or
three such continuous figures have been described,
the hands, still holding loosely, will settle themselves
into a proper relation to each other, and to the shot.’

HOW TO LEARN 9

The educational value of Sir Walter’s recommendation
lies in the fact that it is in some sort an appeal to
Nature, by whose decree each individual differs in
countless respects from each and every other.

Again, in the important matter of stance, the ultimate
appeal is to Nature. When a man wishes to deliver
the most vigorous blow possible at a fixed point, it
is natural for him to place his feet equidistant from
that point. This enables him to preserve his balance
while hitting, and consequently to time his stroke
accurately. It is extremely probable that no golfer
exactly follows the guidance of Nature in taking up
his position for each and every shot that he plays ;
and it is quite certain that if a man should satisfy
himself by use of a yard measure that he had got
his feet equidistant from the ball before striking at
it, his shots, owing to lack of spontaneity, would be
feeble and inaccurate. The learner need not be
particular to an inch or even two. Any greater
divergence than this from the normal, in the distance
of the two feet from the ball, is a source of danger.
Granted that several men play extremely well from a
stance which looks as if it had been originally arbitrary
rather than methodical ; granted, further, that two or
three of these men are peculiarly capable of adapting
then* stance to the inequalities of undulating or
hummocky ground ; it by no means follows that
their example can safely be followed by normal
creatures. My experience as an educationalist leads
me to believe that a scientific lecture can sometimes
be made to produce satisfactory practical results to

10 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

the learner, if it be summarised in a rule of thumb.
Therefore I suggest to the incipient golfer that he
train himself to place his feet equidistant from the
ball, and to poise his weight so that each of his two
legs makes the same angle with the surface of the
ground, which for purposes of this rule is presumed to
be dead flat. He will be told in subsequent chapters
how to make his arrangements for ‘ hanging ‘ and
* cocked-up ‘ balls. Discussion of accidental diffi-
culties is out of place in a broad dissertation on
‘ Method.’

There is another point to be dealt with before we
come to considering how the club is to be lifted from
and brought back to the ball. It is the position of the
shoulders during the preliminary address. Let me
recapitulate what has already been said : repetition
is often helpful. The player is to regard his left arm
as part of his club shaft, and his grip as the attach-
ment splicing one part of the shaft to the other ; he
is to stand with his feet practically equidistant from
the ball, and his legs at practically the same angle to
the ground. Now, the normal man’s arms are, like his
legs, of equal length. When he golfs he has to treat
his left arm as so much club shaft. It is obvious
that in a great majority of cases that left arm will be
kept straight, or so nearly straight as makes no matter.
It follows that in order to place his right hand below
the left on the handle of the club, the normally built
man must depress his right shoulder appreciably. A
simple experiment will show him well enough the
amount of depression which is proper. Let him take

HOW TO LEARN 11

hold of his club with the left hand only ; let him
stand upright and keep his left arm rigidly straight ;
then let him slowly put his right hand on the handle
below the left without stooping forward or shortening
his left arm by bending it or by any other trick. He
will find that his right shoulder must go down anything
from four to six inches below the left. At first, when
he addresses the ball, he will very likely feel as if he
could not hit as hard as his physique justifies him
in expecting to hit. By raising the right shoulder he
gains an added sense of power. But what we want is
not a feeling of power during the address, but tangible
evidence of its presence at the moment of impact. An
ounce of fact is proverbially worth a pound of theory,
and fact is particularly valuable when it supports
theory, as it does in this case. One of the differences
between amateur and professional golf is that the
professionals, when addressing the ball, keep their
right shoulders appreciably lower than the amateurs.
Braid, Taylor, and Vardon, though they possess this
as every other golfing virtue highly developed, are not
thereby singled out from other members of their
profession. Mr. Ball and Mr. Maxwell are conspicuous
among amateurs for their depressed right shoulders.
I have admitted above that the adoption of the position
may cause a sensation of comparative feebleness
during the address. I will now try to prove that the
feeling is illusory, and that full power is exercised in
the hitting. In the first place, the five golfers
mentioned are all notably long drivers. On the
whole, it is true to say that they attain length without

12 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

appearing to strain after it ; their strokes, though
full of vigour, are yet restrained and compact. There
is every reason why this should be so. The depres-
sion of the right shoulder enables them to grip tight
with both hands, at least while the club is approaching
the end of its downward journey. Even in the days
of my novitiate I felt there must be something wrong
about the old maxim, ‘ Tight with the left hand, loose
with the right.’ Now I am sure. It is seldom wise
to argue from the analogy of other games to golf,
‘ the peculiar pastime of a peculiar people,’ but in
this connection analogic method of proof is sound.
In all ball-games except lawn-tennis, force and nip
are put into hitting by the introduction of the action
employed by a good cover-point when he throws in
underhand to the stumps. Give a rackets-player a
balk a la main, and down goes his right shoulder as
he throws his racket underhand at it. The cricketer
does the same things when he drives a half-volley
straight for four. There is no need to multiply
instances ; it is sufficient to ask why a golfer should be
deprived of a privilege freely accorded to the rest of
sane humanity. Many readers will recall countless
occasions on which they have heard disappointed
players account for a missed shot by saying, ‘ I dropped
my right shoulder at it.’ I confess that I do not
know precisely what this error of style is, unless it be
a lifting of the trunk simultaneously with the club
and a subsequent lurching of the weight on to the ball.
This is an action very different from that which I
have endeavoured to describe. But the frequent use

HOW TO LEARN 13

of the phrase ‘ dropping the right shoulder ‘ frightens
many off imitating Braid, Vardon, Mr. Blackwell,
and a host of other fine drivers who all depress the
right shoulder when addressing the ball, and hit by
throwing the club underhand at its mark. There is
some danger that he who tries to acquire the recom-
mended action of right-hand arm and shoulder will at
first overdo it. He must be warned against allowing
his right hand to master the left. In the golfing
stroke hit is subservient to swing. So far as either
hand or arm is concerned in the production of swing,
it is the left. When the right hand introduces the
element of hit or ‘ throw ‘ call it which you please
it must be kept under such restraint as will prevent
it from causing the left wrist to be bent at the moment
of impact. When that happens the club head is not
presented square to the ball, and a miss of one kind or
another ensues. It has been stated above that the
left arm must be regarded as part of the club shaft.
The right hand must not bend it any more than it
can be allowed to bend or break the hickory stick.

Having arrived at a definition of * hit,’ we may
with propriety try to discover the exact meaning of
the term swing. In the last paragraph it was said
that, so far as either hand produces swing, the left
does the work. As a matter of fact, it is the turn of
the body which swings the club. We may conveniently
visualise the path of the club head through the air as
the arc of a perfect circle, although it is really an
ellipse. The centre of that circle is the player’s
backbone, and the length of its arc is properly esti-

14 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

mated by the amount of body-turn, not by the extent
of the club head’s backward journey. It is popularly
supposed that Mr. Maxwell’s swing is very short.
A careful examination of his photographs shows that
it is quite full. True, the club head rarely is lifted
back higher than his right shoulder, and his hands are
seldom above the level of his waist. But the body-
turn is quite complete. His shoulders, which at the
time of his address were parallel, or practically parallel,
to the proposed line of his ball’s flight, are, when he
is at the top of his back swing, at right angles to that
line. It will be of great assistance to the beginner
if he can realise what his instructor means when he
talks about swing. Few golfers have never felt the
desire to drive with a full swing ; many have been led
by that desire to take their clubs back further than is
at all necessary, to the great detriment of their play.
Within limits it is true to say that the less distance
the club head is withdrawn from the ball the better
the results. The limits alluded to are set by two
facts : one is that the swing should be full, the other
that the right arm must have sufficient space in
which to do its special work, the ‘ hitting.’ A power-
ful but stiffly built man like Mr. Maxwell can get the
desired effect, and yet curtail the arc described in the
air by his club-head. Less muscular and more supple
individuals require more room for their manoeuvres.
Every man must discover for himself by experiment
the length of backward arc most suitable for his
peculiar physical conformation. It will aid him to
arrive quickly at the required knowledge if hs learns

HOW TO LEARN 16

from the start to measure length of swing by the
amount of pivoting round his backbone done by his
shoulders and loins, and by nothing else. Roughly
speaking, the stronger a man’s forearm the less the
space which he requires for dealing an effective blow,
and the shorter the distance which he need withdraw
his club from the ball. The truth of this is made more
apparent by cricketers than by golfers ; the former
hit the more naturally of the two and are the less
disposed to aim at a style rather than the ball. Mr.
Ernest Smith and Mr. B. J. T. Bosanquet, each of
them conspicuous among the hard hitters of their
contemporaries, seldom lifted their bats shoulder high
even when making their biggest drives. Major H. S.
Bush, a man of much lighter and more wiry build,
takes his up to the level of his right ear, and sends
the ball equally far and high. The explanation of
the difference between the two styles is obvious. The
last-named batsman requires more space for the full
development of the hitting action the underhanded
throw than the other two. The essential method of
all three is the same.

The purpose of this chapter being to provide a basis
of theory on which professional teachers, and the other
eminent authorities who discourse in subsequent
chapters of this book about the various golfing shots,
can build an abiding edifice, I should be encroaching
on their domain if I were to deal particularly with
the different clubs, their use and abuse. Yet I have
not quite reached my conclusion. So far I have
endeavoured to set down the minimum of general

16 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

knowledge required by a learner before he can extract
the maximum of profit from technical instruction.
It remains to decline from theory to practice and
state what is in my opinion the best, or rather the
only proper way for a would-be golfer to organise his
education. To those whom I most desire to serve my
remarks will seem to be uttered by the voice of one
crying in the wilderness. They will not read this or
any other book about golf until they have been some
weeks at the game, and have possibly contracted bad
habits which they will find difficult of eradication.
Herodotus once said that the worst pain which the
human mind can suffer is to have foreknowledge of
many things combined with inability to influence
anybody. I face the prospect of suffering that awful
agony because there is a reasonable chance that
professional coaches will read what is printed below
and adopt, at least in part, the educational methods
there recommended. They have to contend with
the fact that the embryonic golfer wants to run before
he can walk ; and, so far as my experience goes, many
of them encourage him in his error by letting him
begin straight off with a wooden club. It is not very
surprising that a professional should put first into the
hands of a raw pupil the club with which he himself
commonly commences his daily round. But it would
be much better for the pupil if he would refuse to
gratify his almost irresistible desire to drive balls as
far as possible, until he has to some extent mastered
what for lack of a better name I will call the
* Fundamental Shot.’ This is nothing more nor less

HOW TO LEARN 17

than a long putt played as stiffly as is compatible
with some freedom of hitting. The distance which
the ball goes will vary according to the club used ;
a cleek may send it one hundred and fifty yards on
hard flat turf, a mashie no more than sixty or seventy.
The wisest golfer of my acquaintance, when he finds
himself off his driving, invariably confines his practice,
if he can so far overcome his constitutional laziness
as to go out and indulge in solitary practice, to
repeated execution of this Fundamental Shot with
his play -club. One of the most difficult tasks which
a man can set himself is the description of a particular
stroke in any game. One may say, with some hope
of conveying his meaning clearly to the mind of
another, how he himself executes the necessary motions,
and it is possible to enumerate precisely the ideals
aimed at. But ultimately the value of every lesson
must depend on its apperception in the mind of the
pupil.

I once started a beginner at golf in the way which
I here recommend, and I think I shall best serve the
purpose which I have in view by describing our
procedure in detail. Our first object was to learn the
proper action of the left hand and arm. I made my
pupil take hold of a club with his left hand only. He
had previously been handling it with the air of one
anxious to hit. When he was obliged to take his
right hand off the leather, a difference in the grip of
the left at once showed itself. Previously the fingers
had been too far under the shaft ; when the left hand
was made to act by itself it came naturally to the

18 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

proper position, so that the finger-tips were not visible
to the striker’s eye. The moral of this having been
pointed out, he was told to take his club back slowly
by wrist action only. He immediately bent his wrist
instead of turning it. He was duly penitent when it
was pointed out to him that he had broken his club-
shaft. His error was easily remedied. First he was
made to drop his hand a trifle, thus diminishing the
angles made by his club with the ground and with his
left arm : when left to himself he had got arm and
club almost in a straight line. This change in their
relative position enabled him to ‘ support, the head of
his club/ as the tennis-player is taught by the marker
to support the head of his racquet. It then came
naturally to him to turn his hand so that the further
the motion was continued the more the back of it
came into his view. At the start of the movement
the toe of his club swung away from the ball and
inwards, and on its completion, when the shaft was
parallel to the ground, the toe was pointing straight
up to the ceiling : this preliminary lesson was given
indoors. The movement was repeated until the
sensation of its correct performance was familiar to
the pupil. He was then permitted to place his right
hand on the handle of the club. When he now tried
to take his club back, the original error of wrist-bending
showed a tendency to reappear, because the right
hand wanted to do too much of the work. It was
reduced to order promptly by being made to hold
so lightly that the club handle, when lifted, fell back
against the web at the base of the right thumb.

HOW TO LEARN 19

Having arrived at an idea of the proper way to begin
the back lift of the club, a process which required less
time than is necessary to write a description of it,
we went out to the course. There the learner was
provided with an ordinary mid-iron, with which he
was asked to hit teed balls at a mark placed less than
a hundred yards away. To do this he had merely to
pass his club to and fro without using all his power
of muscle. In a very short time he learnt to keep
his left arm straight, to turn his left wrist properly,
to hit through the ball and not at it. I cannot say
that all his shots were good ; many were topped,
others went crooked. But he never perpetrated the
complete and disgruntling miss, and from the very
start he began to develop a satisfactory follow-through.
For a couple of days he confined himself to practising
this Fundamental Shot, using different clubs, but never
attempting a full stroke with any of them. It was a
week before he played a round, though he watched
a certain number of matches being contested. In
considerably less than a year his handicap was below
ten, and I hold that his rapid progress in proficiency
was due to the excellence of his start.

It will, I hope, be already apparent what this
Fundamental Shot is. It might be called a Half -shot,
seeing that it is played almost entirely with the arms ;
body-turn hardly enters into it at all. It constitutes
the whole of a short pitch-and-run approach, and
forms the essential beginning of every longer stroke.
Let us suppose that it is desired to play a ball by the
Fundamental Shot to a point due north. First the

20 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

left hand and wrist turn the club head in a south-
westerly direction, at the same time gradually lifting
it until it is a little higher than the player’s knee.
The toe of the club is then pointing straight up to
the sky. The back lift is completed not by bending
wrist or elbow, but by allowing the left arm to pass in
front of the chest, until a feeling of strain on the left
shoulder joint gives warning that the limit of south-
westerly movement has been reached. The player’s
hands will now be about on a level with his waist,
his club head with his right ear. I have a strong
belief, amounting almost to conviction, that the
triceps muscle of the left arm does most of the work
during the second half of the back lift. It also starts
the downward motion of the club by pulling it back
towards the ball. This downward motion is con-
tinued by the re-turn of the wrists, especially the left,
to their original position. If these motions are
correctly executed the face of the club will be presented
fair and square to the ball, as it was when it ‘ addressed ‘
it. It is of the first importance that at the moment
when club head impinges on ball the left wrist should
be taut almost to rigidity. The club head will then
be dragged through the ball by the triceps muscle of
the left arm, the right assisting by the thrust of its
underhand throw, and will follow on smoothly until
its momentum has exhausted itself. It is impossible
to say where it will finish, for Finish is a thing entirely
different from Follow – through. Follow – through is
the natural consequence of a correctly executed stroke ;
Finish is the device adopted by the individual player

HOW TO LEARN 21

to relieve the muscles of hand and arm at. the end of
his follow- through. Vardon seems to relax his grip
at this moment and to let his club drop gracefully
on to his left shoulder. Taylor pulls his hand back
to his left thigh. Mr. John Ball’s wiry wrists some-
times make his club describe a ‘ pig-tail ‘ in the air
when a specially vigorous drive has caused a more
than usually forceful follow – through. Even the
follow- through itself may be curtailed by circumstances.
When Vardon executes the so-called ‘ Push-shot ‘
with cleek or iron, his club head often stops within
two or three feet of the spot from which it has
removed the ball. This is because after striking the
ball it went on into the ground, which acts as a shock-
absorber, and immediately relieves his wrists of strain.
The follow-through is complete, but finish is lacking
because there is no need for it.

Here I permit myself to digress, because the
ludicrously wrong ideas about ‘ Vardon ‘s Push-shot ‘
held by many persons aptly illustrate an important
point in this chapter, videlicet that the general
acceptance of inaccurate terminology handicaps edu-
cationalists terribly in the discharge of their duties.
This particular stroke has no share in the nature of a
Push, and it was used for the treatment of bad-lying
balls by many players before Vardon appeared to
impress the imagination of the golfing world. When
he lays a ball dead with his cleek from a distance
slightly less than two hundred yards, incidentally
cutting a fid of turf from the ground just in front of
where his ball lay, and stands there poised in an

22 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

attitude of easy grace, his club checked maybe a yard
in front of him, he pulled rather than pushed the
cleek head down on to the ball. It was the left
triceps, not the right biceps, which did the trick, and
at the moment of impact his hands were in front of
the ball rather than behind it. He has himself told
us that he keeps his hands in advance of the ball,
and the camera shows that he speaks truth. Now
nobody can push an object forward unless he gets
behind it. But some of Vardon’s would-be imitators
make a sad mess of their long iron-shots, because they
have an idea that they must in some way * push ‘ the
reluctant ball towards the hole. They will very
probably find illumination in the statement that the
club head must be pulled on to the ball with the left
arm, the underhand throw of the right coming in at
the last moment to supplement, but not to supersede,
the pace imparted to it by the left. This seems to
me to be merely another way of stating Vardon’s
printed explanation of his method.

To return for a moment to the ‘ Fundamental Shot.’
I claim for it as a medium of education, that as com-
pared with the Full Drive, which most commonly
forms the subject of the earliest lessons given to a
beginner, it is easy to explain and easy to demonstrate ;
that a persistent and prolonged attempt to master it
makes a man detect unity in the manner of making
all strokes from short approach to full drive ; that the
absence of violent exertion prevents the intrusion of
errors in hitting, which are difficult of detection by
teacher or pupil ; that it leads to a grasp of the

HOW TO LEARN 23

essentials of method, which will be most valuable to
the young player when he has developed a recog-
nisable and appraisable c game/ but finds himself
temporarily off it : he can put himself on the road to
recovery by beginning again at the beginning, and
he has a definite beginning to begin with. Finally,
it is universal ; everybody who is anybody at golf
plays the half -shot with an iron club in practically the
same way, and the half-shot differs only in degree
from longer and more forceful shots. I leave it for
others to tell how the more complex strokes from
Drive to Putt should be accomplished. My sincere
hope is that those who have given careful attention
to the instruction in the elements hereinbefore set
out, will in consequence be able to derive the fuller
benefit when they get into the Sixth Form, and are
up to Mr. Darwin, James Sherlock, and last but
who in all courtesy should have been named first
Mrs. Ross, better known to golfing fame as Miss
May Hezlet.

PART I

ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION
BY BERNARD DARWIN

PRELIMINARY NOTE

A NUMBER of educational works have been written
on golf, many of them by highly distinguished persons.
On certain points these authorities have differed
considerably, and I have thought that it might be
interesting to bring together their various views for pur-
poses of comparison, and occasionally, after summing
up, to pronounce, for what it is worth, a diffident
verdict upon their differences. These controversial
points are, however, apt to be abstruse, and, though
I hope they may be of some interest to mature golfers,
would probably confuse the mind of the quite ele-
mentary student. Therefore I have tried as far
as possible first to give the elementary theory of a
particular stroke more or less dogmatically, and after-
wards to discuss the more complicated points, on
which there is a diversity of opinion. This can be
done much more easily with some strokes than with
others. The right and wrong ways of putting are,
for instance, so much matters of opinion that it is
almost impossible to separate elementary dogmas
from violently controversial points. I am therefore
conscious that I have not always been able to stick

28 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

as closely as i could wish to the scheme I marked out
for myself. I think it is best, however, to give this
short explanation of the plan on which I worked as
far as I could, in order that the reader, if he does
not find a particular point in one place, may curb his
indignation, and hope to find it in another.

CHAPTER I
DRIVING

(a) FIRST PRINCIPLES OF THE SWING

THERE are two rather different systems on which
instruction may be imparted in the art of driving.
In one the victim is first of all carefully placed in
position by means of a foot-rule, while an exhaustive
explanation is given him of the probably fatal effects
of adopting any of some six other courses. Then,
when his mental and bodily faculties have become
paralysed by terror and cramp respectively, he is
allowed, as an afterthought, to swing his club. In
the other, as little attention as possible is for the
moment paid to position, but the teacher’s first object
is that his pupil should learn to swing the club back-
wards and forwards in a reasonably correct, and at
the same time comfortable manner, while having as
few things as possible on his mind. Then, when he
has attained to something dimly resembling a swing,
the question of attitude is gone into in greater detail.
The latter seems to me the better of the two, and for
a specific reason. Very good golfers adopt very

Note. The pictures illustrating the various strokes, positions, etc.,
discussed by Mr. Darwin, are from photographs of Fred Robson
taken in actual execution of each stroke. [ED.]

30 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

different attitudes before striking the ball : attitudes
which have so little in common that to deduce from
them any hard-and-fast general law that shall be useful
to the learner is almost impossible. There must always
be so many exceptions to any rule that the question
resolves itself in the end into a matter of opinion.
On the other hand, as regards swinging the club,
however different from each other the good players
may look to our fallible eyes, yet, if their swings be
picked to pieces, certain things will be found in the
methods of one and all of them. Those things there-
fore would appear to be essentials, and by all means
let us get the things that are essential drummed into
the student’s head as soon as possible.

Yet at the very outset I must depart from the plan
that I have proposed for myself not once but twice,
in order to deal with the question of clubs and the
method of holding them. In order to get to the
real business, however, I will, at the present moment
at any rate, be as brief as possible. As to the club,
indeed it is wise at this stage to say just as little as
may be. If the reader is not in the absolutely
elementary stage, he will already have got a wooden
club which he believes, no doubt rightly, to be the
best in the world ; if he is a beginner, he had better
let himself be guided by the man who sells him the
club, unless the latter appear obviously dishonest or
incompetent. The only two points on which he may
venture to insist are that the club should not be too
long, and that it should be reasonably lofted in the face.

As to the question of grip, I propose to leave over

DRIVING 31

for the moment the much debated question of the
overlapping grip, and to say that a club may be
grasped in any way a man pleases subject to these
three provisoes :

1. That he holds his hands as near together as may

be.

2. That he has the knuckles of his left hand turned

perceptibly upward, though not to an extent
that will cramp him.

3. That he do not imbed the handle of his club too

deeply in the palm of the right hand, nor hold
it with that hand in too cast-iron a grip. The
left thumb may do what it pleases, but the
right thumb will be better round the handle
of the club than straight along it.

And now at last for the swing, with only these two
further words of caution : that the player should
stand as far from his imaginary ball as he comfortably
can, that his feet should be fairly wide apart, and that
he should begin by making himself and his muscles
feel limp and ‘ floppy/ if the expression be permissible,
rather than taut and rigid.

The point of the last piece of advice is just this,
that, to quote from the Badminton Library, ‘ above
everything the golfing drive is a swing and not a hit.’
It is often said that the best golfers of to-day hit much
more pronouncedly than did their predecessors, and
that in fact the golfing stroke is really a hit and not
a swing. I will not pause to argue the proposition,
which may after all merely resolve itself into a question

32 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

of words ; if there is truth in it, it is an improper
truth to be jealously guarded from the golfing young
person. Whatever the best word to describe it, a
golf-ball is best propelled by a smooth and even
motion of various parts of the player’s anatomy, and
if the beginner imagines himself to be hitting, he will
inevitably brace himself for an effort, tauten his
muscles, and deliver a blow spasmodic, jerky, and
uneven, probably accompanied by a palpable jump.
So, whatever he thinks, he must clothe himself in a
panoply of faith, ‘ the quality which consists in believ-
ing that which we know to be untrue/ and believe
with his whole soul that he is to sweep away the ball,
or rather, for the present, the head of a daisy.

So armed, he may take an easy gentle swing or two ;
then at the third swing let him stop in the middle
at the top of the swing, as it is called and in the
words of the Irish drill-sergeant ‘ step out here and
look at himself/ Two tests may be suggested as to
whether he is performing the action, roughly speaking,
rightly or wrongly. Let him observe, firstly, whether
the nose of his club is pointing straight down to the
ground ; and, secondly, whether his left wrist is
bent inward so as to be almost directly under the
shaft of his club. The latter point needs perhaps a
further word of explanation. The learner has prob-
ably noticed at one time or another that common,’
and often charming phenomenon, the bad, female
lawn-tennis player ; he will have seen her method of
playing a back-hand shot with the wrist bent outward
in the direction in which the ball is supposed by

DRIVING 33

courtesy to be about to travel. The golfer’s wrist at
the top of his swing should be just as unlike that lady’s
wrist as it is possible for one thing to be unlike
another.

Now, it may turn out that he finds that in both
instances he is doing the right and not the wrong
thing ; if that is so, he is very lucky, and has avoided
one considerable difficulty by the light of nature.
But it is much more probable that his wrist is turned
rather outwards than inwards, and that the nose of
his club is pointed rather to heaven than earth. One
of these mistakes depends on the other, and both
proceed from a very pardonable misconception of the
player’s duty. He properly begins the proceedings
by having the club face turned in the direction in
which he proposes to drive, with the centre of the
face opposite the ball, and it is quite natural to imagine
that this attitude of the club head towards the ball
should be maintained throughout the swing. There-
fore with much pains and labour he takes the club
back, the face being still religiously turned in the
direction of the ball’s proposed flight. Now this idea
is, as has been said, very natural ; it may even be
praiseworthy ; but it has one serious defect in that
it is shown by experience to be hopelessly, fatally
wrong. The mind must at the outset be disabused
of the idea that the club is to keep its face turned
faithfully towards the ball ; on the contrary, the up
swing is to be a process of turning the face gradually
away from the ball, and the down swing a process of
turning it gradually towards it again. And since the

34 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

club face is moved by means of the hands and wrists,
it follows that these two have also to turn away from
the ball in the upward swing.

This appears a positively unnatural doctrine, but
it is not really so outrageous as it sounds. I once
tried to explain it in a small elementary treatise by
reference to a one-handed stroke, and I venture to
think that this is as illuminating a method as any
other. Let the player take his club in his left hand,
and having fixed on the daisy or dandelion that is to
be his victim, imagine himself to be playing a back-
hand shot at it as he would at lawn- tennis. Since
nearly every one has played lawn-tennis or some
other game involving a racket, this will be a natural
movement, and he will go through it more or less
instinctively. Let him go through the performance
quite slowly and keep a watchful eye on his hand and
wrist and on the head of the club, to see what they
are doing. He will see that the club head does not
for more than a very few inches of its progress remain
facing in the direction in which he proposes to hit.
No, it turns away from the line of flight and inwards,
towards the player’s body, while the hand and wrist
are similarly turning over and inwards. Continue the
movement a little further, and the face of the club is
almost looking up to heaven. Continue it a little
further still till the club has reached a horizontal
position over the player’s neck : the nose of the club
will be found pointing straight down to the ground
and the wrist will be bent inwards right under the
shaft of the club ; the two latter phenomena, as I

. ::%

ONE-HANDED EXERCISE

[To face p. 34

DRIVING 35

said before, being essential to a true swing. However,
to take the club right round the neck with one hand
is hard work, and is not, moreover, really necessary.
It is quite sufficient, with this back-hand shot, to take
it back quite a short distance, because the essential
thing is to get the club to start its career correctly ;
once comfortably started it will not be likely to err
very grievously.

I have a firm belief in this short back-hand swing
with the left hand as a method of starting the club
back properly, and it should be practised and persevered
with for a little while, till the player feels quite com-
fortable with it. Then the strong right hand, which
has no doubt been itching to plunge into the fray,
may be allowed to join the left in holding the club.
The immediate result will probably be a thorough
dislocation of the swing, for the right hand does not
like being ordered about by the left, and is apt to rebel
at first against that turning-over movement of the club.
So, although it will ultimately be allowed to hold
tight and do plenty of work, the right hand had
better at first hold rather loosely and be thoroughly
subordinated to the left. Although he has now got
two hands, the player should still as far as possible
imagine himself with only one, and drone away to
himself ‘ a back-hand stroke with the left hand. 1
The two warring hands will gradually make friends
and work together more or less harmoniously.

When he has in some degree mastered this
elementary movement, the player should try by
degrees to make it gradually a bigger and bolder one,

36 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

taking the club back further and more freely, and
with the arms not too closely tucked in to his body.
As soon as he does this he will very clearly feel the
necessity for his body and legs to join in the fun,
since, if they do not, there inevitably comes a hitch
when no further backward movement of the club is
possible. The great thing to remember about the
body and legs is that they must always know their
place, which is a subsidiary one ; they must never
start a movement on their own account, but must only
move at the moment when the arms and wrists,
having taken the lead, can get no further without
them. His own sensations will tell the player when
that moment has come, and he is not to antici-
pate it.

Moreover, when the body is allowed to move, its
owner must be very careful only to let it move in one
particular way. He must not move it from left to
right with a hazy, if magnificent, idea of gathering
all his weight together on the right foot for a plunge
at the ball. That is called swaying, and is one of
the seven deadly sins. Nor must he move it upwards
like the hero in a novel who, at some terrific moment,
i draws himself up to his full height,’ as a preliminary
towards making a ‘ supreme effort.’ The head must
be kept absolutely and rigidly still, and there must
be none of this upward jump. The body must move
only round its own axis. Behind the player’s waist-
coat buttons runs an imaginary line, and round that
line, as an axis, the body should turn freely, but the
axis itself must not budge, and the best way to keep

DRIVING : TOP OF SWING

(To face p. 87

DRIVING 37

the axis steady is to keep the head absolutely and
ferociously still.

If the head and the imaginary axis behave them-
selves, there is nothing desperately difficult about the
body movement ; nothing, indeed, comparable in
difficulty with the initial task of keeping the head still.
If the club goes back properly, the left shoulder will
be found to be coming gradually round and downwards
towards the ball, while the right shoulder goes gradu-
ally upward and away from the ball. But the left
shoulder cannot move very far round if the left foot
is kept rigidly fixed, and so the turning movement is
communicated to the left knee and left foot. Two
things are particularly important as regards this
left foot. First, it has to occupy a completely sub-
ordinate position and ought hardly to move before it
is literally torn from its place by the turn of the body.
Secondly, when the turn of the foot is made, it is to
be made on the inside of the foot and not on the tip
of the toe. To pirouette on the extreme toe almost
inevitably upsets the balance of the body, and is a
perfectly spurious and unnecessary movement, coming
under the head of what has been called ‘ false
encouragement ‘ to the swing.

Now, if all these various parts of the body have
performed their functions properly, the player will
find himself poised at the top of his swing and looking
at the ball from a point just to the right of his left
shoulder. His hands should be just above the level
of the right shoulder, and the club well clear of the
shoulder. This is what ought to have happened,

38 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

but since it is quite possible that it has not, it is worth
while suggesting one or two errors that, in spite of all
precautions, may have crept into the upward swing.
It may be that the club, instead of being over the
shoulder, is over the head, while the right elbow,
instead of being kept low and fairly close to the side,
as it ought to be, is high in the air. In that case it
is probable that the right hand has been recalcitrant,
has refused to obey the left, and has taken charge of
the swing, with the consequence that the turning
movement of the wrists has not been properly carried
out. It follows that the turning movement of the
body is not properly completed either, and the whole
swing is thrown out of gear. There is nothing for it
but to pay great attention to the wrist movement,
and go back if necessary to that back-handed move-
ment of the left hand. On the other hand, the player
may have made exactly the opposite mistake ; he
may, with the best intentions, have exaggerated the
turning movement, so as to swing the club with a
scythe-like motion round the middle of his back,
while the wrist, from overmuch zeal, is actually
turned out instead of in. If so, he must see to it that
in turning over his wrists he does not perform that
action with such misdirected energy as to turn the
left elbow outward and far away from the body. If
the left elbow be kept lightly brushing against the
chest as the club goes up, the wrists ought not very
gravely to misbehave themselves in this particular.

These are the two extremes of error into which the
player may have fallen, but I will assume that he has

DRIVING 39

avoided them both and is now comfortably poised at
the top of the swing comfortably and yet with a
certain sense of tension : tension of the wrists if
they are bent beneath the shaft as they ought to be :
of the body if it has turned properly, and of the right
knee, which ought not to have been allowed to bend
in the slightest degree. He ought not in fact to stop
at this point, for the club should come down again
after only an imperceptible pause, but I may allow
him to stop and rest for a minute, because he has
now accomplished infinitely the most laborious and
difficult part of his task. The down swing which
actually does the hitting of the ball is child’s play
compared with the up swing ; granted a proper up
swing, the down swing will come almost automatically.
Therefore, though the club has at first to be taken up
carefully, it can almost from the first be brought
down comparatively light-heartedly, subject only to
two words of caution. The head must be as immov-
able as ever ; the player must keep his eye on the ball
or, as I have seen it well expressed, he must take care
to see his club strike the ball ; also he must not allow
himself to think too much of the word hit : he must
remember that he is still swinging.

On this down swing the various movements before
described will repeat themselves in an exactly reverse
order : the wrists will, so to speak, uncoil themselves :
the body will turn back on its immovable axis : the
right shoulder will come round and under. But, and
this is intensely important, the player must let
these things happen spontaneously : he must not

40 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

try to help them. If he does, he will probably turn
his right wrist over and beat the ball heavily over
the head with the face of the club turned inwards.
He must regard himself rather as a piece of machinery
which has been carefully and correctly wound up
and must, so to speak, go off by itself. Left to
itself, the machinery will bring hands, body, club and
all back to the ball in exactly the same position
in which they were when the swing was begun,
and to do this is, I suppose, the secret of accurate
hitting. But the machine must not be stopped with
a whir and a jerk when the ball is reached. Left to
itself and this phrase cannot be repeated too often
the swing will finish right out and the club head go,
as it were, clean through the ball and end over the
left shoulder, while body and legs follow obediently
in its wake. A good player can, by putting in force
at the right moment, accelerate the working of the
machine without dislocating it. The novice must not
try to do so ; it will work quite quickly enough
unaided. It is because this is such a hard lesson to
be learned that the word hit is to be deprecated. The
good player does hit very hard, but he hits smoothly
and through the ball ; the bad player hits at it, and
to do that is to stop the swing with a jerk. It is far
easier to avoid this error if nothing more solid than a
daisy takes the place of a ball, just because it is so
much easier to imagine oneself hitting through a daisy.
Wherefore the ball should be eliminated until the
club swings backwards and forwards smoothly and
easily. The longer the learner can do without a ball,

DRIVING 41

the longer will be the distance that he will some day
be able to drive it.

(6) THE STANCE

When dealing with the elementary principles of
the driving swing, the position of the feet was dis-
missed in rather cavalier fashion. It must, however,
be faced, and with it the golfer is confronted with a
question which, if not acutely controversial, is at any
rate one of opinion. To the earnest student of golf
it may not be uninteresting to trace, very shortly,
the changes both in teaching and in actual practice
which have taken place on this one point. In 1890
the author of the Badminton volume laid down the
law dogmatically thus : that supposing an imaginary
line to be drawn from the player’s left toe parallel
with the line on which he intended to drive, his right
toe should be some three inches in rear of that line.
In common golfing language he was to stand with his
right foot behind his left. This theory the author
justified in three ways : by deductions from first
principles, by referring to the older golfing manuals
of Mr. Chambers and Mr. Forgan, and by pointing
to the example of the great majority of good players
of that date. 1 After that there arose a race of fine
players nearly all of whom acted in direct opposition
to these tenets, by standing more or less ‘ open/

1 It may be noted, as giving a hint of some previous changes of
opinion in more ancient times, that at this same date Sir Walter
Simpson speaks of the style recommended both by himself and
Mr. Hutchinson as the new as opposed to the old style.

42 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

that is to say, having the right foot in advance of
the imaginary line. One may quote as conspicuous
instances, Mr. Ball, who had previously been regarded
as the exception that proved the rule, Mr. Hilton,
Mr. F. G. Tait, J. H. Taylor and Harry Vardon, and
of a rather younger generation Mr. Maxwell and Mr.
Graham, three of whom have in print upheld the open
stance as the best. With these forcible examples
before them, the golfing world, always an imitative
and easily influenced one, largely threw off its allegi-
ance to its pristine teachers and adopted an open
stance, sometimes with benefit to itself, sometimes
probably with disastrous results. To-day the pen-
dulum has swung slightly back again. From an ex-
perience in watching golf during the last few years
which, though certainly not peculiar, is at any rate
extensive, I should say that the greater number of
good players still stand slightly but perceptibly open,
and that very few indeed have the right foot actually
behind the left. On the other hand, Taylor, who
perhaps afforded the most conspicuous example of
the open stance, has, I think, his right foot further
back than in his early days, and Braid, the most
notable player of the last few years, stands, and has
recommended others to stand, ‘ square/ that is to say
with neither foot perceptibly in front of the other.

When all is said and done, it must be to a con-
siderable extent a matter of individual preference.
If any man feels a strong natural predilection for any
particular stance, not grotesquely exaggerated, can
only feel comfortable in that stance, and is reasonably

DRIVING 43

successful with it, he will probably be ill-advised to
change it. Most of us, however, are not reasonably
successful, and therefore one may sum up the argu-
ments for the different methods and indicate as
judicially as possible one’s own conclusion.

The teachers of the older school said shortly this :
that to have the right foot in rear of the left helps the
player to take the club well out away from his body,
and so obtain a bigger flatter sweep of the club.
They carried the war into the enemy’s country by
adding that the open stance had a tendency, by reason
of the more vertical taking up of the club, to check
the swing, and produce that most hideous of all
diseases, slicing. The argument of the other side
was briefly this : that the player with his right foot
in advance was better able to see where he was going,
and so could aim better ; that he could follow through
more easily and with less effort ; and that he had,
generally, more control over himself and his club.

To the arguers on both sides one may say, in the
words of the conciliatory innkeeper in Silas Marner,
‘ The truth lies atween you ; you ‘re both right and
both wrong, as I allays say.’

There is, for instance, no doubt that the old stance,
as I will call it, does let the arms, and so the club, go
further out from the body, and when a golfer gets
into a cramped and confined method of hitting, as will
sometimes happen, the remedy of putting the right
foot an inch or two further back is at least worth a
respectful trial. But and here is the rub it may
be gravely questioned whether the doctrine that the

44 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

arms should go as far as possible out from the body is
a sound one at all. We have seen that with nearly
all good drivers the club head is not taken away for
any distance in a straight line behind the ball. If
it were, the arms would of course go with it, right out
and away from the body. But since we have agreed
that the club is to be taken very decidedly inwards,
it follows that the arms go inwards too, and, save in
the sense that the swing must be free and not cramped,
they do not go out from the body at all. Nothing
is more noticeable about the driving of the modern
professionals than the fact that they keep their arms
quite close to the body. It is a free style, of course,
splendidly free, but it is a wonderfully compact style
too. And this look of compactness is due, I fancy,
to the arms never straying far away from the body.
Taylor is the most noticeable of all in this direction,
with that right elbow of his never leaving his side
a principle on which he lays great stress ; but Taylor
is not really the best example, because he is an abnormal
player with an abnormal wrist and forearm. What
other player could finish with his hands tucked away
in the pit of his stomach, and yet hit the ball perfectly
straight and hideously far ? Look rather among the
young players, at Duncan, as free and slashing a hitter
as can be, and see how well into himself he keeps his
arms. Look among the older men, at Harry Vardon,
upon whom, with certain obvious differences, Duncan
has clearly modelled his style ; there is the same
beautiful compactness. Sherlock, again, a player
in some ways sui generis, lets the right elbow slide

DRIVING 45

noticeably round his back ; his arms certainly do not
go out from the body in the sense in which the words
are used in the Badminton. One would hardly tell
a beginner deliberately to keep his arms close to his
body, or at any rate to do so would be to incur a grave
responsibility, with the possibility of cramping him
for life. One might rather compromise by telling him
to avoid swinging wildly with the arms. At any rate,
having regard to the weight of modern teaching and
example, one would not tell him deliberately to take
the club out from his body, and, that being so, the
chief argument for the right foot back goes by the
board. One or two further arguments against this
attitude may be adduced. For one, it is for most
people a difficult position in which to aim straight ;
and for another, the fact of having to reach out over
the left foot produces a tendency to stooping, as any
one can discover by personal experiment. Again, it
is an attitude which lends itself perhaps more fatally
than almost any other to exaggeration : the right
foot is apt to creep back and back till the golfer, who
started by aiming towards long-on, will end by trying
to hit to square leg. When the position is in the very
least degree exaggerated, the player can only follow
through in the desired direction by wrenching round
his shoulders with a palpable effort. Even among
very good players who stand with the right foot
noticeably far back, I have noticed the tendency to a
forced and ungainly twist of the shoulders.

And now, having poured a broadside of abuse into
the old stance, let us attack the new or open stance.

46 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

The gravamen of the charge against it is that it causes
the club to be taken up too vertically, the swing to
be too ‘ straight up and down.’ In this charge there
is truth if, and as I venture to think only if, the open
stance is exaggerated. What of course constitutes
exaggeration is a question which may be asked, and
can be best answered by indicating what is not
exaggeration. It may safely be said that to have
the right foot three or four inches in front of that
imaginary line of ours comes within the limit of strict
moderation. Let the reader take a club and, at
imminent risk to the chimney ornaments, try the
experiment himself. He will find that if the right
foot be advanced immoderately, the right leg and
shoulder will, if one may say so, get in his way, or, to
be precise, in the way of the club, so that his only
comfortable plan will be to take up the club more
vertically. Also and I think this is the more impor-
tant point of the two he will discover that a much
more forcible turn of the body is needed if he is to
be in the proper position at the top of the swing,
and so there is the greater temptation not to turn the
body at all ; from this last crime the taking up of
the club too straight follows almost inevitably. The
moral of this is that the player who adopts the open
stance must be very, very careful to keep that right
foot within bounds. To be for a moment egotistical,
I have sometimes found that with a very decidedly
open stance, I can drive with an ease and fire and
straightness of which I did not believe myself capable
for a while. It may be for a few shots, or a whole

DRIVING 47

round, or, and this is sadly rare, for a whole day, but
there always comes a breakdown, due, no doubt, to a
gradual exaggeration of the successful stance, and
that breakdown is the worst of the many kinds to which
I have been a martyr. At length I have learnt wisdom
on this one point, and if in the hour of my affliction a
kind friend makes the suggestion that I should stand
more open, my invariable reply to him is, ‘ Get thee
behind me.’ I know he is only tempting me to a worse
fall.

From the fact that two equally eminent golfers have
written that the open stance (1) impedes and (2)
facilitates the art of following through, a cynical
reader might draw the conclusion that in this particular
regard it has no effect whatever. My own experience,
for what it is worth, is that it is easier to follow through
when standing open. The fact that the player is
already facing, in a slight degree, in the direction in
which he means to drive, seems to allow club, arms,
and body to go forward more easily in that direction.
Indeed, in that word body there lurks a hidden danger ;
it is fatally easy to lurch forward with the body
instead of standing still, so that Braid says that
1 the chief danger of the open stance is the tendency
which undoubtedly exists to put the body into the
stroke too soon. The body seems to want to get in
almost as soon as the club begins the down-swing,
and when the player is a little off his game it is con-
stantly getting there before the club.’

The reader may by now have discovered for himself
the advice to which all this argument has tended,

48 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

namely, that he should avoid the error of either party
by adopting a stance that shall be as far as possible
square. Let the right foot be three or four inches in
front and not more : let him be for ever watching and
praying that this foot does not encroach any further.

According to the stance he adopts, the player will
stand more or less behind his ball. He may have the
ball almost opposite to his left heel, or to the middle
of his body, or further back still almost opposite his
right heel. The latter is a phenomenon occasionally
to be observed in the styles of those who stand very
open, but is not to be imitated. The object to be
obtained is, roughly speaking, that ‘ the ball, club
shaft and hands should be all, as nearly as possible,
in the same vertical plane.’ To this may be added
that the getting of the hands in front of the ball is,
on the whole, a commoner error even than having
them too far behind. Hundreds of thousands of shots
are annually mistimed by the hands coining through
too soon, and if a man start by having his hands too
far in front of the ball, he is surely encouraging himself
in this common error. Therefore it seems wise to put
the ball as far forward as is comfortably possible, but
a few inches behind the left heel. If the player comes
to feel that he cannot reach the ball on the down
swing without a forward lunge of his body, he may
be sure that he has exaggerated yet another virtue
into a vice and has got the ball too far forward. This
is comparatively rare, however, and a much more
frequent and insidious bad habit is that of getting too
far in front of the ball. This attitude gives for a

DRIVING 49

while a great sense of power, of being well over the
ball, but the ensuing breakdown is nearly always a
particularly bad one.

Besides what may be called this main question as
regards the stance, there are two or three subsidiary
ones, two of which are of so elemental a character
that perhaps I should have put them first. They are,
first, How far away the player is to stand from the
ball ; and, secondly, How far his feet are to be apart ?

It is a truism to point out that the first question
must depend largely on the lie of the club, and that
the more upright the club the nearer must the player
stand to his ball. There are a few people who, so to
speak, flatten the lie of their clubs by holding them
in such a way that the heel of the club rests on the
ground, while the toe is cocked in the air. One
exceedingly sound golfer, Mr. H. S. Colt, has a suspicion
of this style about his driving, although it is not so
marked as in his putting, wherein only the extreme
heel of the club rests upon the ground. One may
assert, however, with some boldness that it is not a
good plan, that the head should rest on the turf at
its natural angle, and that if a man wants to drive
like the ‘ auld wife cuttin’ hay ‘ of Bob Martin, he had
better buy a flat club. There are a few who may be
seen with only the toe of the club on the ground, a
feat accomplished by holding the wrists abnormally
high in an attitude of the most exquisite discomfort,
but these are almost invariably bad players who may
be condemned without any show of respect.

50 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

Since so much must depend on the lie of the club
head and also on the length of the shaft, it would be
futile to lay down any rule in feet and inches, and no
better guide though it is of course only a rough guide
can be given than that of the Badminton Library :
* The ball should be at just such a distance from the
player that when the club is laid with its heel not the
centre of the face to the ball, the end of the club
shaft reaches just to the player’s left knee as he stands
upright.’ A more general piece of advice may be
added that the player should stand as far away from
the ball as he can, consistently with holding himself
tolerably upright ; and, further, that he should always
be on his guard against standing too close to the ball.
The beginner nearly always desires to get close to his
ball, and the seasoned player is quite likely to fall
into the error of gradually creeping in. Braid, who
is a great advocate of standing far away from the
ball, carries out his own precepts so thoroughly that
he addresses the ball with the extreme nose of the
club, and this is also a feature of the style of another
great golfer, Mr. Mure Fergusson. Presumably in the
course of their swing these two fall ever so slightly
forward, so as to bring the centre of the face against
the ball, but the fact that they can do it is not enough
to justify the less talented in trying such tricks. As
far as I know, Mr. Laidlay is the only good player who
addresses the ball with the heel of his driver, and then,
by way of compensation, falls ever so slightly away
from the ball in the course of the swing. This, too,
is an eccentricity of genius not to be imitated.

DRIVING 61

As to the distance between the feet, the ancient
piece of advice may be quoted, merely in order to give
some rough idea, that the distance between the feet
should be eighteen inches. One or two considerations
may, however, be pointed out. To stand with the
feet very far apart, in short to straddle, ought to
ensure a certain firmness on the feet, and may be
recommended to those conscious of unsteadiness in
this respect. Of all golfers there is no one who is so
splendidly steady on his feet as Mr. John Ball, and
he has rather a wide stance. Yet those who knew
his game a good many years back will tell you that he
now has his feet very decidedly nearer than of yore.
This may be because even Mr. Ball is not quite so
young as he was once, and a very wide stance increases
the strain on the back and demands distinctly more
exertion in swinging the club. There is also in this
style, as may be found by experiment, a greater
temptation to an altogether too free and exuberant
movement of the knees : some very wide straddlers,
indeed, attain at the top of the swing to an attitude
best described perhaps as prayerful.

To go to the opposite extreme and stand with the
feet very close together makes an easier business of
the swing ; indeed, there is some danger of too much
ease, and a consequent loss of power. This method
is nevertheless characteristic of at least three very
excellent golfers, the Messrs. Ellis, H. G. B. and H. C.,
and Mr. H. W. Beveridge. The latter nowadays has
his feet wonderfully close together, and his style of
driving is certainly a very easy one. I am not sure

52 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

whether he is quite so long as he used to be, but he
would appear to have gained perceptibly in accuracy
of hitting. To any one conscious either temporarily
or permanently of too forcing a style, with too much
body and knee movement, and an inability to let the
club come well and easily through, this style may be
respectfully recommended for trial.

Any measurements of distance between the feet
must largely depend on the relative positions of the
player’s heels and toes ; or whether, and if so to what
extent, he turns his toes out. This will again depend
in a measure on whether or not he adopts a more or
less open stance. Those who stand in what I have
called the old style are inclined to have the left foot
hardly turned out at all, and the right turned out
palpably more. Players in the open style, on the
other hand, have the left foot turned well out, while
the right foot is almost at right angles to the
imaginary line drawn parallel to the line of flight.
This is the case with Harry Vardon, for example,
and it is the obvious and natural thing to do. In the
same way it is, I suppose, natural for those who have
quite a square stance to have both feet turned slightly
outward, and it is safe to say that ‘ what is natural
can’t be desperate.’ At the same time, observation
of the best players of the day shows that they nearly
all of them have the left foot turned very perceptibly
more outward of the two, and there is, I think, one
good reason for having the right foot scarcely at all
turned out. It is generally held that, for the sake
of greater stillness and steadiness of the body, the

DRIVING 53

right knee should not, at the top of the swing, be
bent to any perceptible extent, and this stiff right
knee is characteristic of nearly all the best drivers.
A little experimenting will show that the keeping of
the right knee stiff in the upward swing is decidedly
easier if the foot be not turned out ; if it be turned
out, there is an inclination to let the right knee swing
out also as the club goes up.

Fifthly and lastly in this intolerable discourse, is the
question of how much, if at all, the knees should be
bent in addressing the ball ; a question which one who
is conscious of standing like a broken-down cab -horse
must be peculiarly diffident in tackling. There are
some very fine players who appear to stand with a
perfectly stiff knee. Conspicuous among them are
two of the great North Berwick golfers, Mr. Laidlay
and Mr. Maxwell, and it is an article of faith with
Mr. Laidlay that the backs of the legs should be stiff
at the moment of hitting the ball. Still, for most
people to stand with a perfectly stiff knee is uncom-
fortable, and the majority of good players will be
found to stand with a very slight bend of both knees.
One or two, such as Herd, stand with much bent
knees, but then Herd makes up for this crouching
stance of his by a conspicuous lift of his body in the
upward swing, and, grand player though he be, this
is one of his qualities that should not be imitated.
That the player should bend the knees ‘ just as little as
he can avoid ‘ this would seem the best conclusion
of the whole matter.

64 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

In the dim future perhaps some post-impressionist
golfer may arise and declare that the follow-through
is not only unnecessary, but actually harmful. At pre-
sent, however, no one, so far as I am aware, has had
the hardihood to say so, and it is generally admitted
as one of the essentials of good driving that the club
head should come well through after the ball. There
is scarcely any point about which the new and
enthusiastic golfer becomes so excited as this one of
following through ; yet there are none on which, as
it often appears to me, he is so wrong-headed and
ignorant.

He is apt to believe that, quite apart from everything
that has happened beforehand, some separate magic
resides in the twirls and twiddles that his club performs
long after the actual hitting of the ball. He determines
that the club shall at all hazards come through, and by
sheer brute force he does compel it to do so ; nay, he
stands for an intolerable time with it duly poised over
his left shoulder. Yet the ball, singularly enough,
scuttles along the ground or soars away with a sidelong
motion to take refuge in the whins : the follow-through
for photographic purposes is admirable, but the prac-
tical result is contemptible.

Now the follow-through, though immensely impor-
tant, is important chiefly as an outward and visible
sign of inward and spiritual grace. That which
happens to the club after the ball has gone is really
only a piece of evidence the most convincing possible

A FINE FINISH

DRIVING 55

evidence except the flight of the ball that the club
has reached the ball in a proper manner. This has
very often been said before, but the matter is so often
misconceived that it may be worth saying again.
To bring the club head to the ball in the wrong way,
and then, after the mischief is done, to drag it through
by main force and suspend it over the left shoulder,
is an utterly futile proceeding.

Yet, half fearing that I have written too vehemently,
I must at once disclaim any intention of minimising
the importance of the follow- through. If a player
finds out for himself or is told by his friends that his
club is not coming through, let him pay heed to it,
for it is as the writing on the wall. He must consider
that he is not a Taylor, who can hit with a sturdy
forearm punch and very little apparent follow-through
indeed, and that if his club is not coming through
he is probably committing one of two main crimes.
Either he is letting his body lurch forward as the
club comes down, so that the hands get through before
the club head, or else he is not so much swinging
his club as lifting it up and hitting with a snatchy
jerk. Whichever crime he decides on as being his,
he will do well to remember that as the club goes up
so it will come down, and set to work first of all to
see what is the matter with his back swing. This is
not to say that the player can never do himself good
by concentrating his mind simply on the follow-
through. It must be admitted that it is sometimes a
beneficial course, although not quite, I fancy, in the
way that many people imagine. By visualising his

56 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

club as sweeping through after the ball, the player
can often unconsciously affect his method of taking
back the club : the benefit which he attributes wholly
to following through comes really from his back
swing having unconsciously grown smoother and more
sweeping.

There is one point connected with the follow-through
which is a delicate and difficult one : to what extent,
if at all, is the player to let the body come through
with the club. It has been repeated ad nauseam
that the body is only to revolve on its own axis. If
this be so, it would seem to be clear that the body
should certainly not come forward with the club,
but occupy at the end of the swing the position that
it did at the beginning, subject, of course, to its being
necessarily turned in the direction of the ball’s flight.
Nevertheless, the same people who taught us about
the body revolving on its own axis provided us with
pictures showing us, as an ideal finish to the swing,
a gentleman whose body has evidently lunged as far
forward a-s possible on to the left foot. We might be
able to disregard the pictures, but observation with
our own eyes shows us that with nearly all good drivers
the body has come perceptibly forward at the end
of the swing.

On this point one observation clearly falls to be
made. The good player’s body comes forward not
before but after he has struck his blow ; it is dragged
forward by the impetus of the arms and the club head
as they go flying out after the departing ball. The
bad player’s body, on the other hand, too often

DRIVING 57

tumbles or lurches forward as he is in the act of hitting.
No doubt it is impossible to avoid a little of this
forward body movement after the ball is struck ; to
try to do so altogether would cramp the swing and lose
power. Yet the difficulty is by no means solved,
because at any rate one very great golfer, Mr. Hilton,
deliberately advocates the coming right through with
the whole body. He says that since many good
golfers do not come through with the body, he cannot
well call it essential to do so, but he goes on : ‘ I cannot
help feeling that whatever success I have attained
has been greatly due to my observance of this
principle.’ Incidentally it is interesting to know that
Mr. Hilton acquired his very pronounced follow-
through, not on his own initiative, but because in his
boyhood he was nearly driven out of his seven young
senses by a judicious parent who insisted, with almost
wearisome reiteration, on this point of the game.

The question really seems to resolve itself, like
many others in golfing teaching, into one of a balance
of temptations. Which is the commoner temptation,
to fall backwards or to fall forwards, to come through
too much, or not to come through at all ? I venture
to say that the temptation to overdo the movement
of coming through is far greater than that of under-
doing it. How many thousands of golfers does one
see beginning to hit too soon, dancing on their toes
and bending their knees long before the club reaches
the ball ? Their bodies are through long before they
ought to be, with the inevitable result that the club
stops with a jerk and never gets through at all. True,

58 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

one also sees those who do not come through, who
fall back feebly on to the right foot at the end of the
swing, but on the whole they are the less common.
It is a case in which each golfer must recognise his
own faults and temptations, and act accordingly ;
but, since the quite immature golfer is not always
capable of so much intelligent thought, I would urge
him again to beware of those alluring pictures, and
too free a movement of the body.

(d) SOME FURTHER POINTS IN DRIVING

In trying to deal with the elements of driving I
treated the turning movement of the left wrist as the
foundation of a true swing, which I believe it to be.
The player was vehemently exhorted to acquire this
wrist movement, and very little more was said as to
the path on which the club should travel in the upward
swing. It must not be overlooked, however, that
there are equally good players, possessing an equally
admirable wrist action, who yet take the club back
on decidedly different lines. Vardon and Taylor
are two conspicuous examples. Vardon has an
upright swing, and Taylor a flat one. Vardon’s club
goes back for some little way almost straight behind
the ball, and is then taken up rather suddenly, although
sudden is perhaps not a good word to apply to that
which is superlatively graceful and easy. Taylor, on
the other hand, takes his club back, as he himself
describes it, ‘ well round the right leg/ From the
moment the club leaves the ball it travels, not on a

DRIVING 59

straight line behind the ball, but inwards towards the
player. Braid is another who seems to take the club
well inwards round the legs from the very moment
when the swing begins, and he too, like Taylor, has a
distinctly flat swing.

Now this taking of the club inwards would seem to
be diametrically opposed to some highly respectable
and cherished doctrines. In the Badminton Library
Mr. Hutchinson says this : ‘ The club head should
swing back, as far as possible, without too forced and
painful straining after this object upon a line which
would be given by production through the ball and
to the player’s right of the ball’s intended flight.’
The words quoted describe very accurately his own
method of swinging ; he does not begin any turning
movement till the club has gone some way back,
and it is this that probably accounts for a slight
4 hang ‘ in the middle of his swing, a phenomenon of
which he is not conscious himself, but which he is
willing to take on trust from others.

It is a doctrine that may perhaps be advantageous
in so far as it encourages a swing that is big and free,
but it certainly complicates matters by introducing
two movements instead of one, and so makes it the
more difficult to swing smoothly. Moreover, as far
as I have been able to observe, it is contrary both to
the teaching and practice of the majority of fine
players, and I incline, therefore, with great respect
to treat it as an eccentricity of genius. To be sure,
one is also faced with the fact that Vardon takes* the
club straight back for some little distance behind the

60 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

ball, but his again is a different style, with the club
taken more abruptly up and with the arms kept much
closer to the body. Vardon’s indeed is a style by itself,
which, much as I admire it, I must frankly admit I
never can quite understand. A better driver cannot
be found, but it is possible perhaps to find a style
which is a safer guide for ordinary mortals.

It is agreed, then, that the club is to be taken rather
inwards towards the body in the backward swing,
but this really need not alarm anybody into thinking
that he has got something quite new to remember.
The turning of the wrists properly begun will
naturally take the club inwards to a quite sufficient
degree, and there is not the least necessity consciously
to accentuate it ; to do so is to run a grave risk of
cramping the swing by getting the arms tucked too
closely in to the body, and indeed of ruining it in
various other ways. A great many people do not take
the club sufficiently in to themselves, and these are
generally confirmed slicers who, having thrown the
arms far out to the right in the back swing, bring them
sharply across to the left in the down swing, thus
cutting across the ball in the most fatal conceivable
manner. If they be observed closely, it will generally
be seen that it is not merely that they take the club
back on the wrong line, but that they take it back in
the wrong way, with the left wrist doing none of the
things that it ought to do. In fact, it is the turn of
the wrist, at which I am still hammering away, that
is at fault.

There is another point which may be called con-

DRIVING 61

troversial in regard to the up swing, and which is, I
am inclined to think, decidedly important, and that
is the behaviour of the right hand at the top of the
swing. We used always to be taught that the club
should turn freely in the right hand, so that at the
top of the swing it should be resting on the web
between the forefinger and thumb. I may quote
from the late Mr. Everard’s interesting book, Golf in
Theory and Practice. While saying that it was an
open question whether the grip of the right hand
should be tight or loose, and whether it should be a
grip with the fingers or the palm, he adds this :
* But one thing is certain, that, when the club strikes
the ball, the shaft in all cases must have arrived in
such a position that it is resting in the fork at the base
of the thumb ; those who adopt the finger grip allow
it to drop into that position during the upward swing.’
I do not think this very positive statement was
accurate in 1896 when it was written. For instance,
Mr. Hilton was then, as he is now, one of the best of
all golfers, and he has told me that never since he was
a boy of fourteen did he let the club thus fall into the
fork at the base of the thumb. Neither, I am very
sure, did Taylor or Mr. Laidlay, who both flourished in
1896 ; indeed, it is one of the merits of their method
of holding the club that the right forefinger is almost
bound to retain its control of the club throughout,
and never let it slip. Vardon, who has the same grip,
in describing his own position at the top of the swing,
says ‘ the grip of the thumb and first finger of the
right hand … is still as firm as at the beginning.’

62 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

At any rate, the statement would be totally inaccurate
if made to-day. The majority of professionals adopt
the so-called Vardon grip, and so the club does not
glide about in the hand, but remains immovable.

There are, of course, some very fine golfers who do
let the club slide, but to do so must, as one would
think, add to the difficulty of their task. The chances
of losing control over the club must be perceptibly
increased by any superfluous movement. Of course
the grip of the right hand must not be too vice-like,
lest freedom be restricted. The right hand must
relax a little at the top of the swing, and we can
see a noticeable instance of this in the style of Mr.
Hilton, who at the top of his swing holds his club
with an extraordinarily delicate grip of the fingers of
the right hand. But and this is the important
point he holds the club firmly with the right fore-
finger and thumb : he does not let the club flop, if
one may so call it, into the fork at the base of the
thumb, and it is this flopping which I so strongly
deprecate.

Only one or two cardinal points in this matter of
grip were insisted on at the beginning of the chapter
on driving, lest the main issue should be confused,
but perhaps it may be well to say a little more now.

Since it is used by such a very large number of fine
players, the overlapping or Vardon grip is certainly
worthy of a most respectful trial. It has been
described and depicted so often that it is almost
superfluous to do so again. A ringer grip with both
hands ; the left thumb lying almost straight down

DRIVING 63

and not round the shaft ; the little finger of the right
hand riding on the first finger of the left : these are
of course its characteristics. When this method of
holding the club was first introduced to public notice,
the chief merit claimed for it was that the overlapping
of the two hands made in effect but one big hand of
them, and that the wrists were thus likely to work in
perfect unison. Doubtless there is some truth in
this, but I incline to think that this particular merit
of the grip has been a good deal exaggerated. I
believe that it has proved beneficial to golfers for
other reasons. First, because of the firmness before
mentioned, which reduces to a minimum the danger
of the club sliding with too frolicsome a spirit in the
right hand. Secondly, because of this same firmness
it is more difficult for a player grossly to over-swing
himself. The left thumb held straight down the
shaft does something to stop the club going far beyond
the horizontal at. the top of the swing, and the un-
relenting grasp of the right hand does more.

There are, of course, many very fine players who
hold their clubs in other ways, and it would be very
foolish to say that they are wrong. As to the left
hand, presuming the thumb to be coiled round the
shaft in the elder fashion, it is of no great moment
whether the grip be a finger or a palm grip, so long as
the knuckles have a decidedly upward turn. As to
the right, it is permissible to be more positive and to
plump for a finger grip, because the resultant swing
is more likely to be smooth and harmonious. To
have the club sunk deep in the palm of the right hand

64 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

tends to produce a style best described as a heaving
one, with too much dropping of the right shoulder,
a heavy blow instead of a quick one. It is also, I
know, the view of Mr. Hilton, acutest of observers,
that it tends to too long and uncontrolled a back
swing. I may perhaps add, as one conscious of far
too long a back swing, that I began life by holding my
club deep in the right palm, and have never been able
to overcome this over-swinging. A preacher of this
doctrine can always have quoted against him Mr.
John Ball, possessor of the most beautiful style in
all the world, who appears to hold the club sunk home
in a clenched right fist. But, in the first place, Mr. Ball
is a wholly exceptional player ; and, in the second, he
perhaps deceives the superficial observer. The right
forefinger straying quite loose gives a clue that ought
to put us on our guard, and in truth I fancy that it
is the three other fingers of the right hand that do
most of the hard work of gripping, and not the fist
at all.

The golfing beginner nearly always desires to do
one of two things as regards the right hand : either
to hold the club with this tremendous grasp of the
whole fist, or else, if he holds more with the fingers,
to lay the right thumb along and not round the shaft.
This last gives him a feeling of guiding the club, and
perhaps it may be well for a short while to let him
have his own way. I doubt it, however, because the
right thumb down is almost sure to cramp him, and
cause him to take the club up far too abruptly. It
is, generally speaking, inimical to a sweeping stroke.

DRIVING 66

Many good players hold their iron clubs thus, but as
regards driving I can only think of one, Mr. Maxwell.
There is always an exception, and apart from that Mr.
Maxwell has a style as peculiar as it is effective. It
is a stiff swing, with hardly anything of the orthodox
wrist movement, and an equal measure of genius and
physical strength are probably required to imitate it
at all successfully. So let the right thumb, unless
hopelessly obdurate, be laid across and not down
the shaft.

There is one more point in particular upon which
modern players have shown a tendency to differ from
the older teachers, and that is as to the distribution
of the weight at the top of the swing. We used to be
taught that in the up swing the weight was trans-
ferred from the left to the right foot, so that when the
player was at the top of his swing all his weight was
on his right foot. Now even if this doctrine is quite
correct, and all the weight is on the right foot at the
top of the swing, I think it would be a very dangerous
one to teach to a beginner, for in his efforts to attain
this shifting of the weight he would almost inevitably
sway his head and his whole body to the right, the
one thing of all things that he is not to do. Even if he
kept his head still and he probably would not he
would yet throw his body about in a very unseemly
way. But in truth and in fact I don’t believe the
doctrine is true at all, or only in a very modified degree.
Look at the photographs of any good player at the
top of his swing, or at the players themselves, and it
will be seen that he has still got a very perceptible

66 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

amount of weight on his left foot. The sounder and
more modern doctrine appears to be well stated by
Braid : * At the top of the swing, although nearly
all the weight will be on the right foot, the player
must feel a distinct pressure on the left one, that is
to say, it must still be doing a small share in the work
of supporting the body. If it is merely touching the
turf, it is a sign that the weight has been thrown too
far backwards, and the proper balance of the body
been disturbed.’ If there is a fault in this passage, it
is that it is not vehement enough in favour of the left
leg. The inclination to sway to the right is so deeply
implanted in human nature that it is, I believe, better
to tell the beginner to keep the weight throughout
fairly evenly distributed between the two feet, and
let the transference of weight look after itself. I
have heard of one very good player and teacher who
declares that when he is driving well, he feels as if
he were wearing a hole in the toe of his left sock.
If this be an exaggeration, it is both a picturesque and
useful one.

CHAPTER II

THROUGH THE GREEN WITH WOODEN
CLUBS

WOODEN club play through the green is not, it must
be sorrowfully admitted, what it once was. The
glory has in a measure departed from it, not because
golfers are less skilful, but because they have far fewer
opportunities of showing their skill. Golf -balls are
made to fly further and further every year, and the
utmost fierceness of golfing architects cannot keep
pace with the ingenuity of ball-makers. Not only
does the modern ball fly an unconscionable distance,
but it flies particularly far when struck with an iron
club. The result of this is that when there is any
grave doubt about the goodness of a lie through the
green, it is possible to take an iron club and lose com-
paratively little distance ; the loss is so small as to
be more than compensated for by additional ease and
certainty in making the shot. Therefore the art of
tearing the ball away from an unpromising lie with a
wooden club and this used to be one of the most
magnificent and satisfactory of all golfing shots
is not nearly so valuable as it used to be. The
Badminton volume devotes considerable space to
explaining how the ball should be jerked away with

68 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

a brassey out of a cuppy lie. The shot was very well
worth the learning and playing then, because invalu-
able distance was gained by daring greatly with wood.
Now the ignoble, pusillanimous iron will do very
nearly as well.

However, though long drivers have to-day but little
use for their brassies, the club is not wholly atrophied.
Many people are not long drivers ; the rudimentary
golfer is not likely to be at first, so he will have this
consolation that the poorer is his driving the greater
his opportunity for playing the j oiliest shot at golf,
the full bang through the green with a wooden club.

For this purpose he will have to buy a brassey,
unless, which is no bad plan, he began to learn his
driving with a brassey rather than a driver. Even
so, he had better get another brassey with which to
play through the green. For his tee-shots he will
not desire a very much lofted club, as soon as he has
passed through the most elementary of all stages,
but through the green he had much better adhere
for some while to a club with a good deal of loft. I
cannot help thinking that there are hundreds and
hundreds of golfers wailing and wondering quite
unnecessarily as to why they cannot hit a wooden
club shot unless the ball be teed. A touch or two
with a file would often make them, comparatively
speaking, happy for life.

As to the shaft of the brassey, it should certainly be
rather stiff, and I am disposed to add that it should be
of the same length as that of the driver. It is the
orthodox thing to have the brassey the shorter of the

WITH WOODEN CLUBS 69

two, but unless a player has a fancy for an abnormally
long club from the tee, a quite needless complication
seems to be involved. The simplest and best thing
to do is to play the shot through the green, when the
lie is normally good, exactly as it would be played
from the tee, and this is made more difficult by
having clubs of different length. I observe in Miss
Cecil Leitch’s book that she goes so far as to have her
brassey the longer of the two, her reason being that
through the green the player may have to stand above
the ball and reach far down to it. Perhaps, however,
on the whole we shall go far enough if we have the two
clubs of the same length.

About the straightforward brassey shot, with a
good lie and an even stance, there are just two things
to be said. In general, the player is to swing his club
exactly as he did for a teed ball ; in particular, he is
not to be afraid of the ground and is to put full con-
fidence in his club. The ball seems to be lying horribly
close to the ground, it looks as if something beyond
the ordinary swing were needed in order to hoist
it into the air. That something, in the case of the
beginner, nearly always takes one disastrous form.
He drops his right shoulder and tries, as it were, to
dig the ball by main force out of the ground. Most
often the ball utterly refuses to be dug out, and if
it yields at all it makes but a sulky little flight with,
as a rule, a pronounced curve to the right.

Now this digging with the right shoulder is a thing
to be avoided like the plague. Persisted in for any
length of time it may become an almost ineradicable

70 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

bad habit. It dislocates the swing : it throws the
head up into the air : it leads to much and excessive
bending of the knees : it is altogether vile. It were
far better for the beginner that he should top ball
after ball to begin with than that, at the very outset
of his career, he should hang this millstone of a vice
round his neck. He must believe that the loft on the
club face will do all that is necessary, if only he can
swing that club truly. Doubtless the ball will for a
while show a desire to trundle along the ground : it is
a way that a ball has when it is hit by a beginner.
It is not so much that he is swinging wrongly : it is
only the ball, taking advantage of his youth and
innocence, trying to tempt him to dig. So he is to
go on swinging easily, aiming carefully, looking at the
ball with a fixed stern eye, declining to be tempted
into digging with the shoulder. The ball will soon
quail before his intrepid glance and do as it is bid.

Thus far the straightforward shot. Next we must
deal with four unpleasant predicaments that can be
divided into two groups. The player’s feet may be
on the flat and the ball may be either above or below
him : that is two. Ball and player may both be on
a down-slope or they may be on an up-slope : that
is two more. As to all four of these predicaments,
the best general piece of advice is to take it very easy
and not to try to do too much. Indeed, when the
difficulty is too acute, it will be wise to take an iron
club. For the purpose of argument, however, we
assume that a wooden club is justified.

As to the first group, the ball below the player is

WITH WOODEN CLUBS 71

decidedly more unpleasant than the one above him.
It tends to tumbling forward, which is a vice more
easily yielded to than falling back ; and it tends to
slicing, which is worse than pulling. There is not much
to be said, save that the player must jamb his heels
into the ground and must not fall forward, and he may
well make some slight allowance for the slice. The
ball above the player is, in strict moderation, not
wholly unpleasant. For one thing it leads to hooking,
and to hit a reasonably hooked ball is great fun.
Then it inclines the player to swing the club low
round his shoulder rather than over it, and since he
is probably disposed through original sin to too upright
a swing, this may in moderation do him more good
than harm. But he must not let himself be carried
away ; he must swing very easily, and even so he
will do well to make some allowance for the hook.
If the ball is at all far above him, he will also do well
to take a grip of his club lower down on the leather.

As to the uphill shot when the player’s left foot is
higher than his right and the ball lies upon an up -slope,
there is again some temptation to hook, but there is
a still greater temptation to top. The eye is apt to
look up to the top of the hill far sooner than it ought.
A similarly disastrous result is often produced in a
different way through the player coming down with
his hands too far in front and so ‘ smothering ‘ the ball.
This is caused by a fear lest the uphill lie will make
the ball go too high in the air, and the resulting
determination to keep it down. The best precaution
against taking the eye off is clearly to keep it on ;

72 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

in the second case there is not much to do save bow
to the inevitable and allow the ball to go as high as
it pleases, concentrating the mind solely on hitting it
cleanly.

Fourthly and lastly comes the down-slope, the
hated hanging lie. The exact degree of unpleasant-
ness will here depend not only on the steepness of the
hanging lie, but also on the nature of the ground
immediately in front of it. Whether the ground in
front continues to slope away from the player or bobs
up again in the form of a nasty obtrusive little hillock
may make all the difference in the club and the tactics
to be employed. Whatever the conditions, however,
and whatever the club, there is one golden rule, namely,
to accommodate the swing to the lie of the ground.
In one of the old bound volumes of Punch there is
a delightful picture of Charles Keene’s in which a
bootmaker, with a deprecating manner, is suggesting
to a testy old gentleman that it would be easier to
make boots for him if he were to cut his corns, to which
the old gentleman replies, ‘ Cut my corns, sir ! I ask
you to fit me a pair o* boots to my feet, sir ! I ‘m
not going to plane my feet down to fit your boots/

Now the attitude of that old gentleman is the
attitude of the hanging lie. It is no manner of use
to be like the bootmaker, and swing the club to suit
the ground as you would like it to be. You must
accommodate yourself to circumstances and swing
down the hill. It is another case in which the club
must be trusted to do its work properly. And there
must be no digging with the right shoulder. The

. 1 .

; : V , V

PICKING THE BALL UP FROM A HANGING LIE

To face p. 72

WITH WOODEN CLUBS 73

swing should be particularly easy and smooth, and
the ball should be perhaps a little more nearly
opposite the left foot than usual. If the ball is at
all far back, there will be an inevitable tendency
to come down rather on the top of the ball, which
will be particularly fatal. For the same reason the
body must be kept well back, and its inclination to
tumble forward down the slope is to be sternly
repressed. When the slope is particularly steep, or
there is rising ground in front which has to be cleared,
nature can be assisted by artifice, in the form of a
shot intentionally sliced. The player may stand
rather more open, and then, turning the face of his
club rather out to the right, swing across the ball.
This shot, if properly played, will cause the ball to
rise perceptibly quicker, but elementary persons are
so far more likely to play it improperly that perhaps
they had better take with due humility to their irons.

CHAPTER III
THE SPOON

No review of wooden club play would to-day be
complete without some mention of the spoon, which,
after being buried for a while in comparative oblivion,
has now become exceedingly fashionable and popular.
There are many spoons : some have short squat
heads, when they rejoice in the name of ‘ pug ‘ or
1 bull-dog ‘ ; some of them have long heads and a
few have heads of aluminium ; some are shod with
brass and some are not ; but their general characteristic
is that of a stiff-shafted club decidedly shorter than a
brassey, and having a face considerably lofted.

As there are spoons and spoons, so there are
spoon-players and spoon-players. There are some
that are celebrated as such : Mr. Hilton, for instance,
who can do the most wonderful things, and get an
incredible amount of stop upon the ball, with the old
cut-down driver that he has wielded for years past
numbering. Duncan is another beautiful spoon-
player, and to see him play a shot right up to the
hole with a great deal of slice is among the most
attractive sights in golf. Mr. John Low has a stroke
with a spoon which is, as far as I know, unique a
kind of wrist-shot that is wonderfully effective ; and

THE SPOON, 75

the editor of this book can perform remarkable feats
alike off grass and out of deep heather with a club
having a long, rather springy shaft and an aluminium
head.

Now these accomplished golfers are spoon-players
proper ; they play shots with the spoon which are
different and differently played from their shots with
other clubs. But of these jugglers there are but few.
For the hundreds and thousands of other golfers who
carry a spoon in their bag the club is just a short,
much lofted brassey and nothing more. They can
do nothing out of the common with it ; they play a
perfectly ordinary simple shot, which is not quite so
long as a brassey shot, and is possibly a little longer
than a cleek shot.

All this is not to say that the club is not a very good
one, and a useful one to carry as an alternative to a
cleek, because the latter is a very fickle club. Taylor,
for instance, is usually a magnificent cleek player,
but at the time he won his fourth championship at
Deal in 1909, his cleek had so utterly forsaken him
that he used throughout a little stumpy-headed,
lofted brassey that he called his Toby, and extra-
ordinarily fine shots he played with it too. What I
do say is that for ninety-nine out of every hundred
golfers there is no particular magic in the club. I have
heard golfers of very mediocre attainments allege
that they can with a spoon do wonderful feats in the
way of cutting the ball up into a stiff wind, stopping
the ball dead on a glassy green, and so on. I have
heard others talk as if they believed they would be

76 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

able to do all these things if they only had a spoon.
As far as I know, they both deceive themselves very
grossly. A spoon will be useful to them when they
want to hit rather a shorter distance than they would
with their brassey, or when the lie is hardly good
enough for a brassey shot, and to those uses of it
they had much better confine themselves. It is
unwise to attempt anything more subtle in the early
stages of a golfing education : the time will, I think,
be better spent in mastering simpler shots with iron
clubs.

Of the more recondite uses of the spoon, Mr. Hilton
is certainly the past master. He can, if he likes, hit
the ball a long way with it, but more often than not
he uses it for comparatively short distances, when a
player of no extraordinary power would often use no
club longer than a fairly straight-faced iron. His
power of making the ball fall dead with practically no
run is truly remarkable, and he is too extraordinarily
skilful in holding the ball up against a wind that
blows from right to left. In this last respect the
spoon is, I fancy, particularly useful, because there is
always a slight tendency to hook with iron clubs,
and it is particularly hard to hold the ball into this
kind of cross wind with an iron or cleek. Mr.
Hilton’s method seems to consist of keeping the body
rather stiff he certainly does not use it to anything
like the same extent that he does in driving and to
trust chiefly to the arms, alike in the back swing and
the follow-through. This is what he says himself :
1 It certainly does not seem correct to say : Keep

THE SPOON 77

taut on the upward swing, and then relax on the
downward sweep, but it is the way I play the stroke
with a spoon.’ That therefore must be the way to
play the best spoon shots in the world, but to relax
in the downward stroke is too dangerous an experiment
for most of us. Our already imperfect follow-through
would be likely to vanish altogether. This kind of
spoon shot is advanced golf if ever there was such a
thing.

CHAPTER IV
WITH IRON CLUBS

MOST of us, if we practise at all, go in for what may
be called the two extremes of golf, driving and putting,
and leave our iron play to take care of itself. This
it does, as a rule, in a highly inefficient manner, for
though we are bad drivers and bad putters, we are
worse iron players. That we are thus lazy about
working at our iron play must be put down to pure
wilfulness, because we know, if we know anything
about it at all, how intensely important these iron clubs
are : we know that there is nothing by which we can
so swiftly tell the professional from the amateur as
the firm, confident, crisp way in which he uses his
irons. We know, too, that there is no sensation
quite so exquisite as that of a really difficult iron shot
really well played. So, with the knowledge of this
besetting laziness, it is well to start with the statement,
made with all possible emphasis, that alike for profit
and pleasure, iron play is enormously well worth the
cultivating.

Now anybody who professes to teach another erring
human being to use his iron clubs is faced straight-
way with one considerable difficulty, a difference of
opinion between learned authorities. The question

WITH IRON CLUBS 79

is whether it is ever right to play a full shot with an
iron club, or, as it is sometimes expressed, whether it
is ever right to swing an iron club. It may savour of
putting the cart before the horse to place an apparently
abstruse discussion on the differences of sages before
elementary instruction for the learner, yet the differ-
ence is so fundamental that some mention of it seems
necessary in order to clear the way.

The point shortly is this, that various very fine
golfers have said that for a man to take a full swing
with an iron club as he does with one of wood must
always be a crime, and that nothing more than a half-
shot should ever be played with an iron club ; need-
less to say, they add that they themselves practise
what they preach. Now, in the first place, I must
with the greatest respect join issue with these
authorities on a question, not of law, but of pure fact.
That they do make great and splendid use of the
half-shot is patent, but when they say they never
take anything approaching a full swing, I firmly
believe that they deceive themselves as well as other
people. ‘ The devil himself knoweth not the mind of
a man/ remarked Chief Justice Holt, and certainly
I cannot tell what is going on inside a champion’s
mind when he is playing a cleek shot. Doubtless
he may feel some difference from his driving swing,
but that the cleek whirls round his head much as
does his driver, it is surely difficult for any one
gifted with a pair of eyes to deny. I would go further
and say, that many very great players play on
occasions full shots with their irons. Not all, I must

80 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

admit. Braid, for instance, when armed with any
club short of a cleek, seems content to play his so-
called ‘ dunck,’ which is really a tremendously power-
ful half-shot, but he is, I think, decidedly the excep-
tion ; and unless appearances are strangely deceptive,
I have on occasions seen the great Alexander Herd
swing freely round his head a club bearing a strong
family likeness to a lofting-iron. So, on the mere
question of fact, I cannot believe that full shots with
cleeks and driving-irons are never played by the
greatest masters of these clubs.

Some time after I wrote these words I went down
to Milford in order to see taken the photographs by
which they are illustrated. As this point is rather
an interesting one, I will state as exactly as I can
what happened. I told Robson to play both with his
cleek and his mashie-iron the longer shot that he
would normally play in a game with either club, and
I particularly emphasised the fact that he was not in
any way to force the club or the shots. He appeared
to play both shots it is, I trust, superfluous to say
that they were real shots well within himself, the full
iron shot being a particularly easy one. The results
speak for themselves. It will be seen that with the
cleek Robson has swung well past the horizontal.
If that is not essentially a swing, and a pretty full
swing too, then I give the whole thing up as a bad
job. With the mashie-iron the swing, which is
portrayed on a later page, is perceptibly shorter,
and there is less freedom of foot-work, but the swing
is a tolerably free one nevertheless.

UN5V. v.

‘*’ ; * ?*”* *J %

A FULL CLEEK SHOT : THE TOP OF THE SWING

[To face p. 80

WITH IRON CLUBS 81

Without, then, for a moment denying the supreme
value of the half-shot as played by the best golfers,
I am prepared on theoretic grounds, as well as on
practical experience, to commend, within limits, the
full shot with an iron club ; that is to say, I commend
it in the case, not of young champions in embryo,
but of the ordinary elementary golfer of pedestrian
attainments. One of the very greatest of iron players
has said that it is always easier to cover a specified
distance with a half-shot with a powerful club
than a full shot with a weaker one. Here again I
respectfully join issue. I have no doubt in the
world it is easier for him, but I do not believe it is
easier for the commonplace golfer. For this latter
there is no shot half so difficult to master as the
half-shot, because there is no shot which demands so
perfect a control of the club, a control which a great
many golfers will never obtain as long as they live.
Moreover, to hit the ball any real distance with a
half-swing demands a strength of wrist and forearm
which is not given to everybody. With a full swing
they can, as it were, get up a reasonable amount of
steam and hit the ball a reasonable distance ; but if
confined to a half-shot they lack the strength to get
any appreciable length with their iron clubs.

So much for the cart, and now for the horse that
comes after it. Iron shots are generally divided, in
colloquial language, into full shots, half-shots, and
wrist-shots, to which there must now, I suppose, be
added, as a kind of corollary, the fashionable and
mysterious push-shot. I think that what are loosely

82 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

called half-shots and wrist-shots will be found to
join naturally on to one another, so that the dividing
line will hardly be discernible ; but the heretical full
shots may at any rate be put in a class by themselves.

They will be played, for the most part, with the
cleek, or alternatively the driving-mashie, or also
occasionally with the driving-iron. Whether a man
plays with a cleek or a driving-mashie is, one may
suggest, of no great moment ; he can have whichever
he fancies. The driving-mashie with its broader face
looks the easier to play with, and I should be inclined
to recommend it as being the easier club, but that the
great majority of good players use the cleek instead.
Whichever is the club chosen, it should have a shaft
that is fairly stiff, and it should, I think, be moderately
heavy. For the hitting of a long ball with an iron
club timing seems to be almost more vital than with
wooden clubs, and it is easier to time the stroke
accurately when you can feel, to some extent, the
weight of the head. These observations also apply to
the driving-iron.

Now, the player is going with his cleek to hit the
ball very nearly as far and as hard as he can. I say
very nearly, because if there is any serious doubt in
his mind as to whether or not he can get up with
the cleek, it will be time for him to take a wooden club.
He has not got to begin at the beginning with the
cleek, because he has already learned the rudiments
of the full swing with his wooden club. The best
thing he can do is to reproduce that swing with a cleek,
subject to this, that any variation between the two

WITH IRON CLUBS 83

swings is to be in the direction of moderation ; the
performance is to be gone through on a very slightly
reduced scale. This reduction will come for the
most part naturally. The club being shorter, the
player must stand nearer his ball, and as a natural
consequence he will probably put the ball rather
further back towards his right foot. Also he may,
if he have a mind to it, advance the right foot slightly,
since it is a sound working principle that the shorter
the shot the more open the stance. Generally
speaking, the swing may be a thought shorter and more
controlled ; the grip, if anything, more firm ; and the
follow-through a little less luxuriant. Yet these
differences are not worth striving after painfully and
industriously. All that is worth aiming for is a
rather greater feeling of general restraint. It is
particularly important not to hurry unduly. The
comparatively heavy head of the iron club making
the art of timing, as I fancy, rather easier, there
is less temptation to hurry than with a wooden
club ; but if this error is easier to avoid, it is more
fatal when it is made. There is a fine deliberateness
about the hitting of great iron players, and it is to be
cultivated in the longest, as well as the shortest of
iron shots. Braid goes so far as to recommend a
pause at the top of the swing with iron clubs, and
if this be found to encourage deliberateness without
dislocating the swing, doubtless it is a good thing.

So far as concerns the fuller shot, the cleek may
now be left alone in order to tackle the iron. I spoke
of the driving-iron, but many people probably have no

84 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

club answering to that description, or if they have
the club they call it by some other name, medium
iron, mid-iron, or, simply and perhaps best of all,
iron. Let it be assumed therefore that we are talking
of a club that comes somewhere between a cleek and
a mashie, that is more lofted than the one and less
lofted than the other. Now with this iron a quite
full swing is no doubt a thing to be guarded against.
I would not say that such a thing should never be
done ; I believe it is done occasionally by the very
best, whatever they may say to the contrary ; but it is
a thing to be done comparatively rarely. The more
lofted is the iron, the more rash it is to take a very
full swing, since the ball must necessarily fly high
and be at the mercy of the wind. So, just as with the
cleek the player was told to exercise a little general
restraint over his swing, now with the iron he should
be conscious of restraining himself yet a little more.
Thus he will attain to something perhaps a little
longer than a three-quarter swing, and if he can
stick to that he will not do badly. His stroke will
still be a swing ; not so much so as in the case of a
drive with a wooden club, but still a swing. The next
stage of his education will bring him to the half-shot,
and here, I take it, the swinging element largely dis-
appears, and the hit begins to play a much more
prominent part. As to the exact distance from the
hole when a man should begin to play a half -shot with
his iron, that must naturally and necessarily depend
on the man himself. Some people can send the ball
with a half-shot practically as far as they can with a

FULL SHOT WITH MASHIE-IRON : TOP OF SWING

[To face p. 84

WITH IRON CLUBS 85

full one ; others cannot get nearly so far, and they
are the more unfortunate, because there is a distinct
gap in their armoury of shots that has got to be filled
somehow.

Roughly speaking, it may be laid down that the
greater the distance that can be brought within the
compass of the half-shot the better, but it is a fatal
thing to be led by vainglory into attempting to play
half-shots beyond one’s strength. The man who,
when his opponent takes a brassey, himself takes a
cleek in order to show his inherent superiority is
certainly a fool, but I doubt if he is so lamentable a
fool as one who tries to flick the ball up with his
wrists, when he knows in his heart that he ought to
be swinging the club round his head. The half-shot
is essentially a controlled shot in which straightness
is everything, and distance, comparatively speaking,
nothing. The moment the player feels that he must
get his body into it in order to get the distance, he
may be certain that he is trying far too much.

(a) THE HALF-SHOT

We have been talking about the half -shot as if it
were played purely with the iron, but the shot can,
of course, be played with various other clubs. It
can be played very profitably with a cleek, although
this is a difficult stroke, only to be acquired, if at
all, with much practice and long after the elementary
stage is past. It can be played with a mashie, and
unless a very abrupt loft or a very dead fall is required,

86 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

it is the easiest and most obvious shot for an ordinary
person to play with a mashie. In short, it is the
shot which is the foundation of all approaching, in
the usual colloquial sense of that word. Once its
main principles have been grasped, the stroke may
with comparative ease be regulated to fit the distance.
For the moment distance is not particularly to the
point ; the thing is to grasp the character of the stroke,
which, having in some respects the same foundation
as has the driving swing, is yet so essentially different
from it.

Fortunately there is here no great controversy on
the matter of stance. It is generally conceded that
the stance should be more open, the right foot further
forward than it was in the drive, while the greater part
of the weight is on this right foot and the ball is placed
comparatively far back. There are the inevitable
exceptions. Mr. Laidlay is apt to play his iron shots,
as in his most frequent moods he plays all his shots,
off his left leg, while Duncan plays all his iron shots
with a remarkably square stance. One can only say
that these two are unusual, and that a fairly open
stance is most likely to suit the average person. At
the same time, the knees are rather more bent, and
the whole attitude slightly more stooping, the player
is decidedly nearer to his ball, and has his arms closer
to his side. Also, since straightness and control are
to be his particular object, he should almost certainly
hold his club fairly low down on the grip. One may
hit a full shot very comfortably while holding the
club at the extreme end ; even if the resultant sensa-

WITH IRON CLUBS 87

tion be that of the tail wagging the dog, it is not in
driving wholly to be deprecated, but so undisciplined
a state of things will not do with iron clubs.

The term half-shot conveys the impression that
the player is to take back his club just half the
distance that he would take it back in a full shot.
The club is in reality taken considerably further back
than this, but if the player keeps a halfway swing
before him as an ideal, he will at any rate be likely
to keep his club well under control. Now, in making
this curtailed movement there is, I believe, a greater
risk even than there was in driving of his taking his
club up entirely in the wrong way. Just because
it may seem to him a simpler and more natural move-
ment, he must be particularly on his guard. He
may well return for a moment or two to that back-
hand exercise with the left hand ; at any rate, he
must take great care that his wrists and the face of
the club are turning away from the ball as they
should. Having started the club up on the way it
should go, he must stop it when it has only com-
pleted part of its course, and this stopping of the
club at the right place is one of the hardest achieve-
ments in golf. Nearly all bad iron players, which
is much the same as saying nearly all golfers, lose
control of their club for a fraction of a second.
During that infinitesimal moment they do not quite
know where the head of the club is and where their
own hands are, and it is this momentary loss of control,
more than any other one thing, that makes them bad
iron players. In order to avoid this pitfall as far as

88 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

may be, the infant iron player should take up the
club distinctly slowly, and make something of a
pause before the club begins its return journey. Also,
he must keep a very decided grip throughout with
the right hand ; not a grip so masterful as to cause
the right hand to overpower the left, but a thoroughly
firm grip, with no trace of that relaxing at the top of
the stroke which was allowed him in his full swing.
Control, control, and again control ; that is the thing
to preach about this shot ; and all the time the club
is being taken back, there should be a feeling of
tautness and tension about the wrists as if they were
determined not to let the club head run away with
them.

Now the player is at the top of this curtailed swing,
his wrists bent well under the club, his right elbow
close to his side. He has finished the pause at the
top, and he wants to come down and hit the ball.
As in the drive, the return journey of the club should
be made almost automatically if the preliminaries
have been correct, but the club must not be allowed
to come down and fling itself after the ball with quite
the glorious abandon of the driving shot. It must
come down more slowly and discreetly : it must not
finish so high in the air or so far round the player’s
left shoulder, and which is the most teasing and
deceitful thing of all it must not sweep the ball
away, but come down on it with something of a snap,
with a very palpable hit.

Sir Walter Simpson has said that we must not expect
a mental attitude to drive a golf-ball, and it is, on

HALF SHOT WITH IRON : TOP OF SWING

This is a shot that probably a good many people would to-day call
a push shot, but half shot seems a simpler and better description.

[To face p. 88

WITH IRON CLUBS 89

the whole, one of the profoundest remarks of that
depressing teacher. At the same time, it is so hard
to indicate in words any really tangible difference
between a swing and a hit, that one must perforce
rely to some extent on the mental attitude of the
player. From the very beginning of the stroke, even
at the moment when he is turning over his wrists
so carefully and conscientiously, he must have it in
the back of his mind that this time there is to be a
good deal of hit about his swing. This mental attitude
will not by itself hit the ball, but combined with much
practice it will help in the hitting. At any rate, when
once the club has been taken back properly, I have
nothing better in the way of positive advice to give.
It may perhaps be added that the right hand may be
allowed to play a fairly prominent part in bringing
the club down, so as to get a little extra snap into the
shot, but I have some qualms in this regard, and at
any rate the advice must be adopted very circum-
spectly.

As regards this stroke, nothing has been said about
the pivoting movement of the body, upon which
such stress is always laid in regard to driving, and in
truth I think the less said about it the better. Of
course the body must not be kept wholly rigid and
immobile ; it must turn to some extent, and so must
the left knee and the left foot. But now that the
turning movement of the wrist has, let us hope, become
in some degree a second nature, the turning of the
rest of the anatomy will follow of itself, and, in
respect to this stroke, wants restricting rather than

90 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

encouraging. The steadier and stiller the body and
feet, the better for the stroke.

If it is essential not to move the body forward, it
is almost equally important not to move it upwards.
In other words, the player must never ‘ unhinge him-
self at the small of the back/ and so alter the
inclination of the body. Also, he cannot possibly
be too careful in keeping his eye on the ball. To me,
at any rate, the temptation to remove the eye seems
greater, and the result of doing so more fatal, in a
half -shot than in a full shot. Moreover, it may be
added that in playing a half-shot it is very difficult
to overdo this business of looking at the ball. In a
full shot it is possible to cramp the follow-through
by keeping the eye too resolutely glued on the ground
after the ball has departed, but in a half-shot there
is practically no such risk. The worst that can
happen is an occasional hook, and what is that com-
pared with the miseries of topping and socketing ?

It only remains to be said, that since the shot will
be used at various distances, it is necessary to be able
to regulate the strength, and this must be done by
regulating the distance that the club is taken back.
There is a temptation to do it in quite a different
way, by taking back the club a uniform distance,
and hitting a more gentle or more vehement blow,
as the case may be. Nothing could be more fatal.
The gentleness degenerates into flabbiness, so that the
club falls feebly on the ball and never gets any further.
The vehemence inevitably leads to putting the body
into the stroke at the wrong time and in the wrong

FINISH OF THE HALF SHOT WITH THE IRON

[To face p. 90

WITH IRON CLUBS 91

way ; the shot is hopelessly mistimed and the ball
struck more often than not upon the socket of the club.

A propos of the half-shot, it may be thought that
something should be said of a stroke that it is now
very fashionable to talk about, if not to play, namely
the push-shot. I confess to being frightened of this
shot. Not only have I grave doubts about its being
elementary in character, but I am not at all certain
of anything about it ; so many different shots, all of
them good and useful, are now called by this name.
In some cases it is indistinguishable to my eyes from
a half-shot. In the case of one player, Mr. Mure
Fergusson, it exactly deserves its name. With a
driving-mashie or driving-iron Mr. Fergusson plays
a shot which is a push and nothing else. He takes
the club back a surprisingly short distance with
a comparatively rigid wrist, and he pushes the ball a
wonderful distance. It is a magnificent shot in a
heavy wind, and may well be imitated on a small
scale, but it is idle for most people to try to send the
ball anything like so far as does Mr. Fergusson.

Mr. de Montmorency has a famous push-shot which
he plays with a very short cleek. He stands with
his weight well forward, and the hands rather in front :
he takes the club up very straight, and seems to
punch very hard down on the top of the ball.

The player, however, who has really made the fame
of the push-shot is Harry Vardon. He does not look
particularly like Mr. de Montmorency when he is
playing the stroke, but there is something of the same
method about it in that he, too, seems to come rather

92 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

down on the ball. I cannot do better than quote
this master’s account of his own shot : * In playing
an ordinary cleek shot the turf is grazed before the
ball in the usual manner ; but to make this half or
push shot perfectly, the sight should be directed to
the centre of the ball, and the club should be brought
directly on to it. In this way the turf should be
grazed for the first time an inch or two on the far
side of the ball.’ In these words is, I think, compressed
the essence of the Vardonian push-shot, and as played
by him it is, no doubt, the most beautiful and
valuable shot. It is a stroke that does appear to be
endued with some uncanny power of making the ball
keep an undeviating course, and it may be especially
valuable to those who feel a tendency to hook their
long iron shots. By all means let the player try to
master it in time, but at first he had better attempt
fewer and simpler things. When he comes to
mastering this push-shot, he will be out of the nursery
and likely to despise text-books.

(6) THE MASHIE

We now leave the iron and come to the mashie,
with which the shorter and more delicate part of
approaching is to be done. It may be well to begin
with a general word of caution, and that is, there
should be no semblance of forcing with the mashie.
Distance is no object at all, and if there is any real
doubt about getting up with a mashie, then a man
should stick to his iron. There is a temptation to

WITH IRON CLUBS 93

force with this club because it looks, and is, easier
to get the ball into the air with the mashie, but no
club more quickly or vindictively resents being used
outside its own proper sphere. There is, too, this to
be remembered : as somebody has well said, you
cannot hit the ball cleaner than clean. Take a club
outside its proper distance ; then fail, as you often
will fail, to hit the ball quite cleanly, and you must
inevitably be very short. In any case, nine out of
every ten approach shots are short ; so where there
is a doubt the more powerful of two clubs almost must
be the right one.

For practical purposes it may be laid down that a
full shot should not be played with a mashie at all.
We may begin with the half-shot as previously
described, and that shot may be made the foundation
of the learner’s mashie play. If he has a considerable
distance to cover, and there is no bunker close in
front of the green, so that the ball may be allowed to
run fairly freely after pitching, he cannot better the
shot which has just been inculcated with regard to
the iron. But he will very often want to pitch the
ball well up to the green, so that it shall not run very
far on alighting. He has not yet reached the point
when a very abrupt loft or a very dead fall are
required : he is at a kind of halfway-house shot.
How is he to differentiate it from his fundamental
half -shot ?

Perhaps the answer that I am going to give may
seem unorthodox ; it is almost certainly contrary to
the generally sound doctrine that the back swing

94 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

is the important thing. Nevertheless, I should say
that on this occasion he is to concentrate his mind
on what is going to happen to his club after the ball
is struck. The ball has to be picked up rather
abruptly, and to that end the club is to be picked
just a little abruptly too, after the ball has been hit.
At the finish of the stroke the club ought to be
pointing more or less straight up in the air in a
perpendicular position, and, which is important, it
is to be guided into this position with a firm wrist.
The requisite finish is not to be attained, although
there is some temptation to do so, by playing with a
loose and ‘ floppy ‘ wrist ; in short, by trying to execute
the stroke with the wrists and with nothing else.
This perpendicular finish will ensure the ball getting
well up into the air, and so dropping comparatively
dead.

Now, if the player can concentrate his mind on the
ending of this stroke, there will probably not be
much amiss with his back swing. The fact of having
to pick up the club at the finish will naturally make
him pick it up rather more abruptly than usual in
the back swing. ‘ Why in the world/ some one
may ask, ‘ did you not begin by telling us to take it
back in this way ? It would have saved much talking.’
The answer is that I have observed that when
people are told to take the club back in a rather more
upright manner than usual, they pick it up as if they
were going to hammer something into the ground,
and deliver a quite ineffectual chopping blow upon
the turf. It will, of course, never do to be afraid of

.*.&> -

ORDINARY MASHIE SHOT WITHOUT CUT :
TOP OF THE STROKE

[To face p. 94

FINISH OK OKDINAKY MASHIK SH<>T

(To face p. 9.”>

WITH IKON CLUBS 95

taking turf with this shot, for it is the natural result
of the more upright swing, but the original sin of an
upright back swing wants no direct encouragement,
and so it is well for this once to proceed indirectly,
make a point of the finish and let the back swing
adapt itself automatically.

So much for the general principles of the shot.
As to details, the stance may be still a little more open,
the attitude have just a suspicion more of crouching
about it. Nothing has been said lately on the matter
of grip, the player having been left to settle that for
himself. If he has adopted the overlapping or Vardon
grip, so much the simpler ; he will be able to grip the
club in the same way for all his shots. If, on the
contrary, he grips rather with the palms of his hands,
it may be suggested to him that in these more delicate
shots it is wiser to have a more delicate grip, and to
hold as much as possible with the fingers. The club
has now to be more continuously guided than in the
free slash of the full swing, and if the player have a
mind to hold not only his left but also his right thumb
down the shaft, in order to obtain more guiding power,
he need have no scruple in doing so.

I keep to the end a warning which Braid believes to
be the most important that can be given in regard to
pitching. ‘ By far the commonest fault in pitching,’
so he says, ‘ is the raising of the body when the club
is being raised in the finishing of the shot.’ Certainly
I know the feeling of lifting up the body only too
well, and so no doubt do many other people. So let
us avoid it as we would the very devil.

96 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

Now, there is the third and last case in which a very
steep loft, if it may so be called, and a very dead
fall are required, and here the player comes to some-
thing like a parting of the ways. He may take a
niblick, or a very much lofted mashie, and play with
it the straightforward shot just described, trusting
to the loft on the club to do the work for him. That
is, in a sense, the course of a coward, though it
may possibly be also that of a wise man who knows
his own limitations. On the other hand he may,
with reckless bravery, plunge into the intricacies of
the most fascinating and delicate, and perhaps also
most difficult shot in golf, the approach played with
cut.

There was a time when the way out by means of a
niblick or a much lofted mashie was regarded with
more suspicion than it is now ; it was thought almost
disgraceful. To-day an enormous number of golfers,
some of them very good golfers, avail themselves of
it, and never tackle the cutting shot at all.

My own impression is that for the middle-aged and
rotund person of limited possibilities and ambitions,
it is well to leave the cutting shot alone and learn, as
far as may be, to hit cleanly and truly with the
niblick, leaving the rest to heaven and the club itself.
On the other hand, the man who professes or hopes
to be a good golfer has a weak joint in his harness if he
is not more or less a master of the cutting stroke.
The professionals are one and all masters of it ; not
so many amateurs who are rated as scratch or better.
The young player of to-day is apt to pursue the line

WITH IRON CLUBS 97

of least resistance and take to his big, saucer-faced
niblick. Often he is very good with it, but I do not
observe that he is so sound a pitcher as, let us say,
Mr. Ball, Mr. Laidlay, Mr. Hilton or Mr. Hutchinson,
who learned their golf in a sterner school. When the
ground is hard and baked and the ball will not grip the
turf, he is a very great deal worse. Niblick or no
niblick, his ball bounds gaily away over the hard
ground, and I speak with the most sincere fellow-
feeling he has not the means of making it stop.
Wherefore let him go out and watch the professionals,
and learn to play the shot with cut against the day
when it may be necessary. It is a stroke that hardly
comes under the head of quite elementary instruction,
but it assuredly cannot be passed over.

There are in golf certain catchwords, familiar
expressions on the links call them what you will
which are sometimes more illuminating than pages
of laboured description. We sometimes hear a man
after playing an approach shot explain that he has
1 cut the legs clean from under it ‘ ; it, in this case,
being the ball. When he says that, he is certainly
not directly praising himself, because he means that
his ball has fallen far short of the mark, but he is
perhaps obliquely lauding the tremendous cut he
succeeded in imparting to the ball. At any rate, that
expression gives rather a good word-picture of the
cut shot ; it enables the learner to visualise the stroke.
To me at least it conveys the impression of the club
head cutting right underneath the ball with a
‘ slithering ‘ sidelong motion. That is what has got

98 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

to happen ; the club face and I presuppose the club
to be a mashie has got to hit a glancing blow across
the ball, and it has got to get well beneath it. So the
club has got to be taken out somewhat to the right
on the way back, and is then to return a little across
the line of flight and finish to the left.

This is an action which can very easily be exag-
gerated. If the club is taken far out to the right,
the arms go too far away from the body ; they thus
lose the necessary support of the body, and the
whole performance becomes disjointed and uncertain.
To obviate this let the player stand still more open,
so that he is to a considerable extent facing in the
direction in which the ball is to be hit, and let him
further turn the face of his mashie slightly out to the
right. Then let him lift the club up in his natural
manner for a short mashie shot. He will find that his
attitude naturally causes him to take the club out
somewhat to the right, as if to play across the ball,
and that this cross-cutting action needs very little,
if any, artificial aid. Similarly the club will come
inwards and finish rather to the left of the body on
its return journey. The swing is still, of course, to
be of a distinctly upright character, and the club is
to be picked up rather quickly after the ball is struck.

Such, as far as I can explain them, are the elements
of the shot, but it is essentially one that can best
be learned by watching a good professional play it.
If we observe a professional playing this stroke, there
is one thing in particular that we notice : just before
the club reaches the ball he seems, as it were, to

MASHIE SHOT WITH CUT : TOP OF THE STROKE

[To face p. 98

FINISH OF MASHIE SHOT WITH CUT

(TofacSp. 99

WITH IRON CLUBS 99

increase the speed at which the club head is travelling,
and to draw it quickly across towards his left foot. I
should like to say that he did it with a quick little
flick, if such an expression did not give the idea of
jerkiness. There must not be a jerk, but at the same
time the shot must be played with great firmness and
crispness ; the ball must be hit comparatively hard,
not stroked in a tender, half-hearted sort of way.

In the Badminton volume Mr. Hutchinson indicated
an alternative method in which the right hand is held
quite loose, and the club is allowed to turn on the
web at the base of the thumb. It is possible thus
to get an extraordinarily vertical swing, and Mr.
Hutchinson can use the shot, not only with deadly
effect, but with certainty. I do not know, however,
of any other good players who play the shot quite
in this way, and for ordinary people I am nearly
sure it is altogether too difficult. Its most distin-
guished exponent himself admits that it is ‘ only, if
ever, to be attempted when in great straits.’

So much for getting the ball into the air. There
remains the task, which at first sight would appear to
be a great deal easier, of making it run along the ground.
I am inclined to think it is in fact easier, but that
does not seem to be the opinion of the great bulk of
work-a-day golfers. There is no shot at the prospect
of which they so palpably flinch as the run-up. They
possess very often just two methods of hitting the

100 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

ball, the full swing and the pitching shot. Anything
outside these two strokes they deem it apparently
not only impossible to play, but in the highest degree
presumptuous to attempt. Why, it is difficult to say,
but the fact remains. Let there be a hurricane
blowing, let there be a steep bank in front of a
plateau green, let there be no bunkers within a
hundred miles, and still they will insist on cocking the
ball up into the air with a lofted club, so that it will
either be blown to perdition by the wind, or, if it alight
on the plateau, will never succeed in staying there.

This is rather violent language, and it may be
taken as showing that I ‘ believe in running up/ or
‘ do not believe in pitching.’ I hope not, because, if
so, then I am very effectually writing myself down
an ass. No sensible person can be a thick-and-thin
adherent of either stroke, because there must be some
occasions when it is obviously right to run up, and
others when it is an equally obvious duty to pitch.

There are, however, occasions in plenty when there
is no very definite right or wrong ; when Taylor, or
Vardon, or Mr. Hilton, for example, would probably
pitch the ball, while Braid or Andrew Kirkaldy or
Mr. Low would elect to run it. As to these dubious
cases, it is likely enough that if one has the pitching
gifts of a Taylor, pitching is the most profitable,
because, on the whole, less fearful things can happen
to the ball in the air than on the ground. But I very
much doubt whether the average golfer will ever
learn to pitch well enough to play an essentially
pitching game. I think he is much more likely to

RUNNING UP WITH THE IRON

[To face p. 101

WITH IRON CLUBS 101

attain to a reasonable measure of steadiness in playing
the running shot, if only because the run-up shot
possesses this negative virtue that it is harder to make
a complete and hopeless foozle of it. At any rate,
it is every golfer’s duty to learn to play the run-up
merely for those occasions when it will clearly be the
right stroke for him to play. These occasions are,
moreover, becoming more and more frequent, since
the tendency of modern golfing architecture is to do
away with cross bunkers in front of the hole, and to
perch many of the holes upon plateau greens.

The stroke can be played with a variety of clubs,
but is most often perhaps played with the club having
the odious name of ‘ jigger/ or with the approaching
cleek, which is much the same thing with a pleasanter
name and a hump on its back. Without launching
into reckless extravagance in the club-maker’s shop,
the essentials of the stroke can be comfortably acquired
with the iron. In its very shortest form it is little
more than a prolonged putt, in most instances it is a
great deal more, but in any case it is no bad thing for
the learner to keep the action of putting in his mind’s
eye. It is another case in which I venture to think
that a mental attitude may do something towards the
hitting of a ball. If the player has putting in his
mind he will probably do one or two of the things
that he ought to do : he will stand fairly close to his
ball and well over it, and he will keep his club moving
close to the ground. If he does those two things it
is something gained, but it is not quite enough. He
must and this is important stand with his weight

102 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

forward on the left foot, the ball being fairly far back
towards his right foot, and this attitude will naturally
bring the hands well forward, and somewhat in front
of the head of the club. Further and this rather
less emphatically the right hand should be held well
over the club. This will help not only in keeping the
ball down, but also in getting a horizontal swing of
the club, and that is what is wanted a rather short,
low, flat swing of the club, well round the legs. The
right wrist should turn over just after the ball is hit ;
indeed, it should be getting ready to turn over just
before the ball is hit. If the club is taken back in
the right way, this turn over of the wrist will come in
a measure naturally ; but it may be encouraged a
little artificially, because it is of such great value in
approaching any kind of plateau. The ball that is
struck without the wrist turning will falter and fade
away at the foot of the hill, but one hit with the
action that has been well described as that of locking
a door, is imbued thereby with additional vitality,
and will go on without so much as a stagger, clambering
up the hill with the utmost gallantry.

About the whole stroke there is to be an air of
comparative stiffness and rigidity. The wrists must
be kept particularly firm and taut in taking back the
club, and the whole body is to be rigidly under control.
Perhaps, as the club comes through, the body may
go forward a little, but this is not to be too much
encouraged, for the hands are naturally well forward
and the ball rather far back, and any ill-timed body
movement will infallibly be disastrous.

FINISH OF RUN-UP SHOT

[To face p. 102

WITH IRON CLUBS 103

Just because of the great risk of lurching forward
with the body the player should, at first at any rate,
refrain from trying to run the ball up from a long
distance. Let him play the shot well within the
compass of his powers, and I solemnly declare it to be
an easy shot, easier at any rate than a pitch. But
to try to hit the ball really far and hard with so cur-
tailed a movement of the club is to be in great danger
of moving that body about which I talk so everlastingly.
Would that we had only astral bodies : we should be
far better golfers.

There is one more stroke, or rather one group of
strokes, that should perhaps be mentioned. It
consists of those little shots, chips or runs-up as the
case may be, which have to be played when the ball
is within quite a short distance of the edge of the
putting-green. In a sense they are only abbreviated
versions of the longer pitching and running shots,
but I am tempted to make one remark about them.
Most bad players play these shots particularly vil-
lainously, and they seem to me to have less idea than
usual of how to control the club. It runs away with
them altogether, so that they lack both sureness and
delicacy of touch, the two things most requisite.
My recipe, for what it is worth, is the adoption of a
rather grovelling attitude, and the holding of the
club quite low down on the shaft. It is of the
utmost importance that these little shots should be
played crisply and decidedly, and a reasonably short
grip of the club makes it much easier to hit the ball
fairly hard. When the ball can run the whole way

104 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

and there is no pitching necessary, it can be stroked
gently up to the hole after the manner of a putt ; but
when it is necessary to pitch the ball ever so little,
crispness of hitting is essential, and anything that
makes it easier to hit the ball hard is worth considering.
I also incline to think that many people put the
ball too far back in playing their little chips, and
would do better if they had the ball well forward,
and played rather off the left leg. It seems easier
thus to get the ball into the air by the natural loft on
the face of the club and without using any artificial
means. That, however, is a suggestion founded on
purely personal experience.

CHAPTER V
IN HAZARDS

OF any beginner in golf, however eminent he may
be in other walks of life, it may be assumed, and that
without insulting him, that he will sooner or later
get into a bunker. Even if he never make a bad shot,
a large assumption, he will, in these days of far-flying
balls, occasionally drive his tee-shot so far as to be
caught in the bunker that is meant to trap the second
shot of weaker vessels. Therefore he will be well
advised to learn the art of getting out of it as quickly
as possible, and he is to consider that it is an art, and
not merely an affair of brute strength and good fortune.
Most bad golfers give themselves up for lost when
their ball disappears into a bunker ; and not without
reason, for they are singularly inept in extracting it.
Yet to have a reasonable hope of getting out of a
reasonably bad bunker in a single shot should not be
too lofty an ambition for any ordinary mortal who
will take the trouble to learn to play the stroke properly.
To attain to this comparatively modest degree of
skill is to gain enormously in confidence and so to
strengthen the whole game, for a man is not nearly
so likely to put his ball into a bunker if he believes
that he can get it out again. A paralysing con-

105

106 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

sciousness of impotence with the niblick is one of the
approacher’s worst foes and the bunker’s best friends.
Balls that lie in bunkers, by which it is, I hope,
superfluous to add, I mean sand bunkers, may be
primarily divided into two classes, those that lie
heavy and those that lie clean. The former are taken
first because they are the more frequently met with,
and also because they alone demand a stroke which
may be termed sui generis. By a ball lying heavy
is meant one that has partially burrowed its way into
the sand, that is lying, in fact, more or less cupped,
and the great point to remember about such a ball
is that the golfer’s whole duty is to get it out a
contemptibly short distance maybe but out. The
first thing to do, then, is to take a niblick, a niblick
with a very strong stiff shaft and broad heavy head,
liberally dowered with loft, and to take it in a firm
determined grasp. The shot that has now to be
played is unlike any other in the game of golf, in
that the one thing to be avoided is the hitting of the
ball. The ball is to be removed from the bunker by
means of an explosion, and the player merely resembles
the gentleman of anarchist proclivities who lights the
fuse. The explosion is caused by the club descending
forcibly into the sand close behind the ball, and the
ensuing commotion hoists the ball more or less
straight up into the air, to fall no great distance away,
but, let us hope, upon the turf ; limp and lifeless,
perhaps, but safe. The most important point of all
is to keep the eye rigidly upon the particle of sand
which it is intended to hit which is an extremely

IN HAZARDS 107

difficult thing to do and not, in the course of the
stroke, to let the eye glide forward towards the ball
itself, which is a fatally easy thing to do. As to
exactly how far behind the ball the club is to be
plunged into the sand, it would perhaps be rash to
dogmatise. It may be some two inches, it may
conceivably be more, and it may certainly sometimes
be less. For one thing a great deal must depend on
the nature of the sand, which varies enormously, not
only with different courses but with the weather.
At Woking, for instance, in a wet winter, the sand in
the bunkers becomes of a consistency only to be
compared to pea-soup, and to cleave through any appre-
ciable quantity of it requires a strength perfectly
gigantic. Wet, hard sand, moreover, must necessarily
require different treatment to sand which is dry and
powdery. In ancient days a player was allowed to
make a preliminary trial of the sand with his niblick
in order to test its consistency, and I have heard
one venerable and scientific niblick player lament
that this is so no longer, since a greater chance was
thus afforded to the clever player to make a really
clever shot. However, it is not allowed nowadays,
and so we must just make the most of our powers of
observation.

So much for the first great point. The second is
that the stroke is to be far more of an up and down
character than any other ; indeed, it is not to be very
far removed from the common chop. One of the
gravest and commonest forms of original sin is the
lifting of the club up too straight, with the almost

108 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

necessary corollary of bringing it too straight down.
Yet, curiously enough, when the golfer is told to give
full rein to his sinful proclivities and take up the club
almost as straight as he can, he appears incapable
of doing so ; either he does not in his heart believe
what his instructor tells him, or else, having
laboriously learnt a flat swing, he cannot suddenly
convert it again into an upright one. Whatever the
reason, there are hundreds of players who are practi-
cally helpless when their ball lies near even a moderately
steep face of a bunker ; they beat the ball again and
again against the wall of its prison, simply because
they will not or cannot come down straight enough
into the sand to make the ball rise sufficiently
vertically. Therefore it is essential to go straight
up and come straight down, and let this manoeuvre be
executed with all the freedom and vigour that is
consistent with a reasonable measure of control and
the keeping of the eyes glued to that particle of sand.
This word of warning should be added : the bunkered
one must not think that his whole duty has been done
when he has brought his club down into the sand.
He must not let it remain there, but must take it
through to the best of his ability. This following
through is a very important part of niblick play, and,
just because it appears so superfluous, we are particu-
larly apt to forget it. The explosion has to take
place under the ball and not merely behind it.

I have used the word chop, but I recognise that
herein lurks some danger of a misunderstanding,
because the art of chopping rather implies that the

:: l\

PLAYING AN ‘EXPLOSIVE’ SHOT OUT OF HEAVY SAND

[To face p. 108

AN ‘KXI’LOSIVK’ SHOT WKI.I. OI’T ON To THK (illKKN

IN HAZARDS 109

chopper should stand well over the choppee, as the
executioner might stand over his victim. Now, with
the niblick experience shows that this will not do.
The player must stand well away behind his ball,
preferably with rather an open stance and having
the ball opposite his left foot ; he may also keep the
right shoulder down and the left shoulder up, an
attitude which seems natural to one about to perform
the action of heaving or hoisting.

Little more can usefully be added to this description
of the volcanic shot, as it has been called ; practice
must do the rest. It must not be imagined, however,
that this shot is only to be employed when the ball
lies more or less heavy. It is generally to be used,
however well and cleanly the ball may lie, whenever
the cliff of the bunker is so near that any stroke
wherein the club hits the ball and not the sand would
fail to make it rise sufficiently abruptly. Indeed,
whenever the cliff is anything but exceedingly low
and there are desperate circumstances to call for
desperate measures, it is by far the safest shot for any
one, save the expert, to employ. Even if the ball
lie clean and the cliff of the bunker is a negligible
quantity, this stroke may be infinitely useful. It
sometimes happens that a ball lies in a bunker, and
yet is but a few yards from the hole, so that the
player’s object is to make the ball just pitch out of
the bunker, and fall as dead as possible on alighting.
To hit the ball itself, however cleanly and accurately,
will impart a certain amount of run, but the explosive
stroke, skilfully played with a nice judgment of the

110 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

amount of sand to be taken, can be made to drop
the ball as dead as a stone. It may be worth while
to add, as a special word of caution, that for some
mysterious reason the cleaner the ball lies the more
difficult it is to keep the eye upon a spot behind it
instead of on the ball itself. Indeed, it is not unusual
to hear a man who has made the saddest mess of a
niblick shot attribute his failure to the fact that his
ball lay too well in the bunker a confession of
weakness, it is true, but of a very common and human
weakness.

However, all bunkers are not close to the green ;
more often than not the player would like to hit the
ball out as far as he possibly can, and then a clean-
lying ball represents a direct intervention of Provi-
dence, to be taken the fullest advantage of. Much
must, of course, depend on the proximity and steep-
ness of the face ; that has already been emphasised ;
and so for our present purpose it may be assumed
that the face will not interfere with a fairly low-
flying ball, and the player may take almost any
club he has a mind to. Account should be taken
of the exact circumstances : it may be wise to take
no risks at all, or things may have come to such a
desperate pass, that the only hope lies in taking a
big risk and the only club that will reach the green.
There is just this to be added on this point of tactics :
before making his decision the player might well put
the question to himself, * Which is the more likely,
that I should successfully reach the green with the
longer club or that, having played short, I should

IN HAZARDS 111

either lay the ball dead with my pitch or hole a long
putt ? ‘

I propose to leave out of the question the taking of
brasseys and cleeks ; these heroic expedients are not
for the elementary student, who may lay it down as
a sound rule of conduct that the straight-faced or
driving-iron is the most ambitious club that he
should ever employ in a bunker, however tempting
the lie. To hit a long shot out of sand is not an easy
thing to do ; only a slight inaccuracy will mar the
stroke, and much confidence is required ; wherefore,
if the player is in any real doubt between two clubs,
he will do well to take the more lofted of the two,
since a lofted face is a great begetter of courage.
There is really more to be said about these tactical
considerations than about the stroke itself. As to
the latter, what is there to say in eifect save that the
player should apply his mind to swinging easily,
and to keeping his eye upon the ball with a greater
ferocity than usual, should that be possible.

Yet maybe something special ought to be said about
a stroke which is more often and more hopelessly
foozled by the amateur than any other, the little
chipping shot whereby the clean-lying ball is flicked
out of a bunker for quite a short distance. This is
a stroke over which nearly every professional has a
wonderful mastery, playing it indeed so easily and
so surely as to make one think that it cannot
really be very difficult, if the player can but take his
courage in both hands. That is what is wanted above
all other qualities courage, for the shot, though a

112 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

delicate one, must be played firmly and crisply. Mr.
Maxwell, indeed, has a wonderful way of stroking
the ball gently out of a bunker, which his admirers
call, I believe, his ‘ pussy-cat ‘ stroke, but it is a
stroke of genius not to be attempted by ordinary
people ; with them the least tendency towards too
great gentleness of hitting ends invariably in the
most ignominious fluff. This last is an onomatopoeic
word requiring surely no explanation ! The profes-
sional plays the shot, as he plays all his pitches, with
cut, and he plays it beautifully ; but laying this for
a moment on one side, there is much to be done by
taking a sufficiently lofted club and keeping the eye
on the ball. There is a dreadful temptation, more
acute than in any other stroke, to lift the body in the
act of striking the ball, and it must be resisted to the
death. I have once been given, as a ‘ tip ‘ for the
curing of this habit, the advice to keep the weight
well forward on the left foot. Very likely there is
something in it, as there is in many other tips, if it
is not overdone ; but if the weight is to be kept forward,
then the ball must be very well forward too ; other-
wise the player will be apt to bring his club down
upon the top of the ball, with results too painful to
describe.

Finally, since all balls that lie in bunkers cannot
be put into one of two hard and fast categories, there
is the ball that lies betwixt and between not
perfectly clean and yet not really heavy. From such
lies as these the most surprising things are apt to
occur. * Great heavens, I never thought it would

IN HAZARDS 113

come out as clean as that,’ cries the astonished victim
as the ball flies like an arrow from the [bow into
impenetrable whins some fifty yards beyond the hole.
The distance is in fact very difficult to regulate, and
it is equally easy either to go too far or, by means of
a feeble fluffy blow, to go not nearly far enough.
So many and different may be the circumstances that
only one definite piece of advice can be given, that is,
the shot should be played with a heavy club. A
light niblick may be of some service, though not so
good as a heavy one, for the volcanic shot, and also
for flicking away the ball that lies quite clean, but
when anything in the nature of a half-shot is required
it is practically useless. The least little bit of inter-
vening sand will take all the firmness out of the shot,
and a deliberate firmness is here essential.

In addition to bunkers there are hazards of such
infinite variety, that it is only possible to indicate
the more common, such as whins, bent grass, and
rushes. With these may be classed heather, although
it has been expressly decided that heather is not a
hazard, and unpleasantly long grass. As to these
last two, however, save that the victim will have the
advantage of grounding his club, his predicament
will be every whit as painful and his method of
extracting himself to all intents and purposes the
same.

There are degrees in the badness of a lie even in the
spiky heart of a whin bush, but as regards all the
substances before enumerated, when the ball has

114 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

embedded itself therein with a genuine malignity,
there is little for it but the 4 common thud ‘ ; that
is on the assumption that the advice to keep some
control over the temper is superfluous. As in the
case of a bunker, the first great object is to get out,
and to take any club but a niblick is the height of
folly, unless success is reasonably certain. The club,
too, must be held very firmly, for it is terribly apt to
twist in the hand, and it is worth while remarking
that, more especially out of the long thick grass, there
is a natural tendency to hook, for which some slight
allowance may wisely be made. In all these cases
a great deal must depend on whether or no the
player can take a free and untrammelled back swing ;
very often he must adapt his swing to the circum-
stances, and sometimes it will pay him to take the
line of least resistance, playing out in a direction
which is not the most eminently desirable, but is the
only one allowing of a free back swing.

As regards heather, when the ball lies reasonably
well a wooden club, preferably a spoon, is sometimes
more effective than an iron one. The roots of the
heather seem to wind themselves round the iron head
and impede it, whereas the wooden club slides more
easily and smoothly over them, and so reaches the
ball with its velocity unimpaired. There is no heather
more trying or tenacious than that at Ashdown Forest,
yet Rowe, the professional there, will nearly always
take his spoon in preference to an iron, and very
wonderful strokes he makes with it. It cannot be
denied, however, that some assurance is needed for

IN HAZARDS 115

the stroke more perhaps than the rudimentary player
is likely to have for some time.

Water is a hazard from which the ball can be played,
though the modern fashion of heavy non-floating
balls seems likely to make the art of so doing extinct.
It is an art in which I am afraid I must confess myself
to be one of the blind leading the blind, and that not
merely as a figure of speech, but because I always
play the stroke with my eyes shut and the most
lamentable consequences. It is a sad thing to be
afraid of a splash, but it is that fear which makes the
stroke so difficult for most of us. We flinch so palpably
that we really stop hitting before we get to the water
at all : the club goes limply into the water and stays
there ; there is no vestige of follow-though, such as
shall pick the ball up and out ; we merely emulate
the oarsman who catches a crab. There is really no
reason why the ball should not come out, if we can
keep our eyes open without flinching. To this I may
add on good authority that nearly everybody is
inclined to take far too much water behind the ball.
So let the club nip in behind, but only just behind,
the ball, keep the eyes wide open, and don’t shy at
the water like a horse at a traction-engine. How
I wish I could do these things myself !

CHAPTER VI
PUTTING

‘ What mighty ills have not been done by putting ?
Destructive, damnable, deceitful putting ? ‘

So might the golfer exclaim, adapting the words of
Otway, who was, I regret to say, ungallant enough to
apply these epithets not to putting, but to woman.
Of all the golfing arts putting is at once the most
important, the most aggravating, and the most unteach-
able. Its supreme importance no one with even the
smallest experience of golf will be disposed to deny ;
one or two putts of merely dubious length holed in
the course of a round often make all the difference
between exhilaration and despair, and colour the
golfer’s recollections not only of his play upon the
green, but of every other stroke that he played in the
game. It is aggravating chiefly because it is so
terribly uncertain. It is possible, though I admit
it is exceeding rare, always to drive well, but the
finest putter in the world is not only incapable of
always putting well, he cannot be quite sure even of
putting decently. Even if he does putt well, he can
never feel certain that his opponent, usually an
execrable performer on the green, will not on this one

occasion putt far better. Nevertheless, the man
no

PUTTING 117

who has deservedly earned a reputation as a good
putter is one to be bitterly envied ; he possesses a
gift whose price is far above rubies.

I have called putting the most unteachable of the
golfing arts, and by this I mean that a man must to
a great extent puzzle it out for himself. There are
of course certain things indeed a great many things
that can be told him, but pure book-learning will be
of less service to him in putting than in the playing
of any other stroke. This is, I suppose, partly because
the latitude that can be allowed the learner in respect
to style is greater in putting than in other strokes,
and partly also because there is no other department
of the game which is to so large an extent mental
rather than physical ; wherein the most perfect style
must be so utterly useless if only the brain wander or
the nerve collapse. Yet never was there a greater
mistake than in thinking, as some people do, that
putting is purely a matter of nerve or will power, and
that style is of no importance. In putting as in
every other stroke, the golfer who has the soundest
style will be most likely to retain his skill, under
unfavourable circumstances. Moreover, those who
make light of style in putting will, I think, observe,
should they condescend to look, that good putters
have in fact certain characteristics in common beyond
that most important characteristic of all, the getting
of the ball into the hole. Equally they will see
if they be not wilfully blind hundreds and hundreds
of players whose method is so obviously and hope-
lessly bad that nothing but a series of miraculous

118 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

interventions can cause ball and hole to meet. There-
fore the teacher, whilst admitting that much must
depend on the learner’s nerve and power of self-
control, and whilst also insisting on the need of much
wrestling in prayer and dogged practising, may yet
give his pupil a good deal of definite advice as to the
style and method of playing.

There are in putting, whether in approach putting
or holing out, two main things to be considered.
There is, in the first place, a preliminary calculation
of the line and strength, and there is, secondly, the
actual hitting of the ball. One eminent authority
whom I profoundly revere has declared that * the
mechanical part of golf is comparatively simple,’
from which it may be inferred that the really difficult
matter is the preliminary calculation. That the
latter is vastly important is proved, if need be, by the
great care taken over it by all good putters, but that
the ‘ mechanical part ‘ is simple I respectfully but
entirely deny. I would go so far as to say that
anybody who could rely on the mechanics of his
putting being permanently correct could afford to
make some of the grossest errors of judgment, and yet
probably be the best putter in the world. I will make
so bold, therefore, as to begin with this mechanical
part and let the line for the moment look after itself.

The player’s first direct business is, I think, to
learn to take the club backwards and forwards in the
way it should go. In order to do this he must have
a club and he must take hold of it. Wherefore we
come to the questions of club and grip. As to the

PUTTING 119

latter a good deal of latitude may be allowed, and the
player, having already decided on his grip for other
clubs, will probably be disposed to hold his putter in
much the same manner. The one point that may
properly be insisted on is that the grip should be a
comparatively delicate one touch in putting is half
the battle and that the club should be held mainly
with the fingers. Whether the overlapping grip is
used or not is in itself no great matter, but it may be
pointed out that a number of golfers who do not
overlap for the longer shots use this grip for putting,
probably because it is essentially a finger grip :
Mr. Hilton and Herd are two prominent instances.
With much the same object, no doubt, namely the
obtaining of a greater and at the same time more
delicate control of the club, many players who, before
the green is reached, coil their thumbs round the
shaft, lay them down the shaft in putting. This
plan would seem to make it rather easier to guide the
club, and a player who feels naturally inclined to it
will be wise to adopt it. There is one grip that
deserves perhaps a special word of description, because
it is, as far as I know, a purely putting grip, never
used for any other stroke, and also because it is the
grip of at least two very excellent putters. It may be
called the reverse overlapping grip, a name which
goes some way to explaining itself. As in the ordinary
overlapping grip, the player holds his left thumb down
the shaft, but instead of allowing the little finger of
the right hand to ride upon the first finger of the
left, he reverses the position, so that the first finger

120 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

of the left hand rides upon the little finger of the
right. It is a grip well worth trying, one of its chief
characteristics being that the right hand is apt to
feel and become the master hand, a state of things for
which, as we shall see later, there is much to be said.
Moreover, it is the grip of Mr. W. J. Travis, or at least
was when he came, saw, and conquered us in 1904, and
no more beautiful exhibition of smooth, true, accurate
hitting was ever seen upon a putting-green. Mr.
Herbert Fowler is another noticeably good putter
who holds his club in this way ; and Mr. John Ball
also has from time to time flirted, if one may say so,
with this grip, though I do not think he has permanently
adhered to it.

So much for the grip, and now as to the club, which
may be made of wood, aluminium, or iron. Clubs
of wood and aluminium I propose to class together,
an action blasphemous and indecent in the eyes of
those who wield the old wooden putter. Certainly
a putter properly so called is the more graceful and
fascinating of the two, and its aluminium rival may
lack something of its sweetness of hitting, but the
method of using the two clubs is largely the same,
and so I will venture to stick to my guns. Iron
putters vary amongst themselves* to an enormous
extent. They have straight necks and crooked necks,
lofted faces and absolutely straight faces, flat lies
and upright lies ; they can be light or they can be
heavy. Still they are all iron putters, and the main
question to be decided is between wood or aluminium
on the one hand and iron on the other. If a man

PUTTING 121

at the beginning of his golfing career feel a strong
yearning towards any particular kind of putter, it
would be flying in the face of Providence to balk
him of his desire. If, however, as is quite likely, he
starts with a mind void of prejudice, then let a club of
aluminium be thrust into his hand ; aluminium, and
not wood, firstly on the economic ground that it is
more indestructible, and, secondly, because the slight
degree of loft on the face makes it rather easier for
the ordinary person to control. I say this because
an aluminium putter is more likely to make him
acquire a smooth and even manner of hitting the ball.
A ball may be tapped or scraped with an iron club
with a just sufficient measure of temporary success
to harden the player in his bad and early ways, and
make future reformation a matter of the gravest
difficulty, but an aluminium club instantly and
effectually resents any such flagrant misuse, and the
ball that is scraped or tapped keeps out of the hole
so resolutely that the owner is in self-defence compelled
to wield the club in a more becoming fashion. I
may, further, adduce the remark of one of the very
best of cleek putters, that had he to begin life over
again, he would begin with an aluminium putter,
because it makes putting easier. Aluminium putters
are turned out by the thousand according to one or
two standard patterns. They are so like each other
that no advice need be given in the choosing of one,
save only that the one should be chosen which is the
best balance. As to what is well or ill balanced
there can be no better guide than the player’s own

122 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

feelings, confirmed perhaps by those of his professional
adviser. If, however, he chooses an iron putter, he
will have an infinitely wider range of choice, so wide
indeed that but two general pieces of advice can be
given him. The club should have a certain amount
of loft on the face, for the absolutely straight-faced
iron putter is by common consent an atrocity, and it
should not be too heavy. Possibly he may secure,
by means honest or dishonest, one of those old, light,
thin-bladed, lofted putting-cleeks, which though rare
are still to be found in the bags of a few fine putters,
such, for instance, as Mr. Laidlay ; if so, let him
treasure it tenderly. They are beautiful clubs that
often began their careers as driving-cleeks in almost
prehistoric times, to be converted in their old age into
putters, and are especially good upon fast or rough
greens. Indeed, there is this to say against the
aluminium putter, that on greens that are very keen
or very rough and lumpy, it demands a degree of
confidence, firmness, and delicacy almost superhuman,
so that an iron club may well be held in reserve.

Meantime, however, the nature of the green does
not enter into the question, and so taking his club in
hand the learner can come at last to the swinging of
it. And as to this, the first great piece of advice is that
putting is to be done with the wrists. It is dogmatic
advice, and advice with which every one does not agree,
since there are fine putters who declare that as regards
short putts the all-important thing is to allow no
play to the wrists. Nevertheless, observation shows
that the majority of good putters undoubtedly do

PUTTING 123

putt with a free wrist, and perhaps I may add, for the
sake of antithesis as much as argument, that the
majority of execrably bad ones putt with a stiff wrist.

Moreover, although I suspect that it is almost
wiser to be dogmatic than to appeal to argument,
one good reason for this advice may be advanced.
The man who putts purely from the wrists can hit the
ball and yet keep his arms practically still, but the
stiff-wristed putter must very decidedly move his
arms, and in consequence is much the more likely of
the two, as a moment’s experiment will show, to move
his body. As to this last crime there can be no two
opinions as to its criminality. The body must not
of course be held as still as a ramrod, since to be
cramped in regard to any stroke is absolutely fatal,
but it is impossible to assert with too passionate an
emphasis that the player must not try to assist the
club on its path by sympathetically moving his body
forward in unison with it. The result will inevitably
be exactly opposite to that intended. So let it be
set down once and for all that the body is to be kept
still, and that the stroke is to be of the wrists and the
wrists only.

The matter, unfortunately, does not end here,
because to swing a putter backwards and forwards
with the wrists in a reasonably smooth manner is not
so easy as it sounds. The learner will find, on the
contrary, that the movement of the club is apt to be
jerky, ragged, and uneven. Let him persevere, how-
ever, swinging the club gently to and fro somewhat after
the manner of a pendulum, and the motion will soon

124 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

become smoother and more satisfactory. He must
also remember that, in the words of a distinguished
writer, ‘ the principal secret of good putting … is
that the club should travel as long as possible on the
line or a production of it on which the ball is to
travel/ and that his club must resemble a pendulum
not only in the smoothness of its motion, but also
in the fact of travelling over and over again the same
straight path. For the attaining of this end, the
editor of this volume once gave some excellent advice
that I may here repeat, namely that ‘ the problem
can be solved more readily in a drawing-room, without
a ball by seeing how the putter head may be best
induced to move along a straight line of the carpet
pattern than on the putting green.’ In trying this
indoor experiment the student will probably discover
incidentally that the direction in which he swings his
club will be materially affected by alterations in the
position of his feet, and by wriggling his feet back-
wards and forwards he will very likely attain to the
position which suits him best. He will also discover
that the behaviour of the club will vary according as
his right or left wrist plays the predominant part
in the swinging of it.

For some mysterious reason it appears that, what-
ever may be done in theory, in practice the work
cannot be equally apportioned between the two
wrists. If their owner craves advice as to which
should do the greater share, he confronts the adviser
with a most difficult problem. The answer that most
people would give is, I fancy, that the right hand

PUTTING 125

should be the predominant hand, but very excellent
players can be quoted who both by precept and
example uphold the opposite theory. There is Mr.
John Low, for instance, than whom no one comes
nearer to his own ideal of ‘ hitting the ball with
freedom, grace and accuracy in the middle of the
club.’ Mr. Low declares that he has come ‘ very
strongly to the opinion that the left should be the
master.’ I have also heard Mr. Herbert Fowler
and he is a very good putter and a gentleman of
very decided opinions express his belief that a
vast deal of the bad putting in the world comes from
the club not being taken back sufficiently with the
left hand. Mr. Low suggests that a good deal
depends on whether a man uses a club of wood or
iron, and that in putting with cleeks, more especially
those of the Park or swan-necked type, the right
hand takes a relatively more important part. He
himself of course uses the putter of wood, but Mr.
Fowler uses a cleek with a bent neck.

Some illustrious examples may be quoted on the
right-handed side of the question. Mr. Sidney Fry
and Sherlock are two that occur to me, and both of
these may be set down primarily as cleek putters,
although I have seen them both putt admirably with
aluminium clubs, and that without any apparent
change of method. Mr. Travis again is very decidedly
a right-hand putter, and yet there is certainly no lack
of freedom, grace, and accuracy about his really
beautiful stroke. The question clearly cannot admit
of a positive answer, but personally, taking an ordinary

126 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

individual about to start on his golfing life with a
perfectly clean sheet, I should advise him to give the
right-hand method a good trial as being, on the whole,
the easier to acquire and the more faithful servant.

Most golfers have probably at one time or another
experimented in putting with what I may call a
croquet-like stroke ; not by swinging the club between
their legs as with the now forbidden mallet, but by
holding their hands some considerable distance apart.
A trial of this method gives the sensation of the right
hand doing most of the work, and more especially
pushing the club well through after the ball, so that
a follow-through of almost exaggerated magnificence
is obtained. I would not advocate holding the
hands far apart, but I quote that method as giving,
as it were, a clue to the stroke, which for the average
person will be found a very sound one. Mr. Fry,
although he holds his hands quite reasonably close
together, has that right-hand push and follow-
through very well marked, and may be given as a
good instance of this method.

There is this to be said against this pronouncedly
right-hand style, that it may lead to the player being
unduly cramped. It is a canon of good putting that
the club should be taken back with freedom and well
away from the ball, and a moment’s experimenting
will show that the club can be taken further back and
with more complete freedom if the work be done with
the left wrist. Still, the right wrist, if it be fairly
supple, should do the work quite freely enough for
practical purposes, and any possible disadvantage on

PUTTING 127

this score is, I think, more than compensated for by
that fine push through of the club straight on the line.

As noted above, there is something like a con-
sensus of opinion that the club should be taken a
good long way back from the ball. It is a noticeable
feature in the style of nearly all the best putters,
particularly resplendent examples being Mr. Low,
Mr. Charles Hutchings and Massey, and it must
necessarily make for the avoidance of the jerk or
snatch, which is fatal to every golfing stroke. Braid,
who, being by nature but an indifferent putter, has
yet by taking thought made himself a very good
one, takes the club back as far as any one and with
a notable, almost laboured, slowness. This slowness
is probably worthy of study and imitation as tending
to a smooth movement of the club, but there is one
danger that lurks in it. The taking of the club back
very slowly and very far produces sometimes a horrible
sensation hard to describe in words, but easily
recognisable in practice ; a kind of hitch in the stroke,
wherein the player feels that he cannot get his club
back to the ball unless he moves his body forward.
He does move his body forward, his hands come
through in front of the club head, and the ball is, as
a rule, pushed out to the right off the heel of the club.
I know no definite cure for this disease except to stand
resolutely still and avoid any undue exaggeration of
the solemnity of the back swing.

The use of the word swing again introduces a point.
There are those who putt very well with something of
a sharp tapping stroke, but there are a great many

128 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

more who putt very ill in this style, and even of the
good ones it may be said that ‘ when they are bad
they are horrid.’ To those who use a club of wood
or aluminium a swinging movement is essential, and
the man who putts with a cleek will probably do much
better if he visualises his stroke as a swing rather
than a hit. For one thing he is more likely to let the
club go well through, and a follow-through is hardly
less important on the green than on the tee. It must
not be too laboured or self-conscious a performance,
and assuredly no striving after it must tempt the body
to move forward. If a man be standing still and
striking the ball a nice, free blow, the follow-through
should come naturally ; and if it does not come he had
better examine critically his back swing, and try to
infuse into it something more of smoothness and
rhythm.

(a) THE PUTTING STANCE

Having said a good deal about the actual way of
putting, I may now deal more briefly with the attitude
in which that hitting is to be done. On the main
question, which is that of stance, there may almost be
said to be two schools of opinion. Some will say that
stance is of so little importance, that a player who
is hitting the ball well, would hit it just as well if
he were completely to change his attitude. Others
hold that every man has a stance that is for him the
natural and right stance, and that when he goes off
his putting the reason is generally to be found in the
fact that he has unconsciously deviated from his

PUTTING 129

normal attitude. The former are doubtless right as
far as this, that hitting the ball truly is the essential,
and that the placing of a foot here or there, some little
trick of attitude, copied perhaps from a master putter
who is himself completely unconscious of it, will not
make a good putter out of a bad one. To this the
other school might reply, ‘ Yes, we admit all that, but
if you get out of your regular way of standing you
feel uncomfortable, and if you feel uncomfortable you
cannot hit the ball. Get back into your natural and
proper stance, and you will swing the club in the
right way. 1

Everybody knows the sensation of those rare red-
letter days on the putting-green when the feet seem
to plant themselves down spontaneously in the one
natural, comfortable attitude, so that their owner
without any effort finds himself and the face of the
club aiming straight at the hole. Those having much
faith believe that on that day the player has got his
feet in exactly the right place, and that if he could
stereotype that attitude he would never putt very
badly again. The thoroughly sceptical, on the other
hand, would attribute the sensation entirely to a kind
of Christian Science, alleging that the player feels
his feet to be rightly placed merely because he feels
confident and is hitting the ball confidently ; in short,
because he is putting well. Personally I rather incline
to the more credulous view, in so far as I think that
when found the successful putting stance should be
made a note of. I do not mean that after a few good
putts a man should instantly try to stereotype his

130 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

stance ; that would be falling into the disastrous
error which Sir Walter Simpson has called imitating
one’s own style. The mental note, once made as
accurately as possible, should be tucked away in
some pigeon-hole of the brain only to be referred to
in time of trouble. To try too deliberately to ward
off that time of trouble is the surest way to accelerate
its inevitable coming.

Now, if every golfer in the world can have his natural
and proper stance, one must, considering the variety
of stances to be seen upon the links, admit that there
is a vast latitude allowable in this respect. That
proposition is indeed undeniable, so that any pieces
of advice must be of necessity of a very general
character. One that I would venture on, though
sadly conscious of being personally unable to follow
it, is that the putter should stand reasonably well
up to his work. He will certainly look more beautiful,
though that may not be a very important matter.
What is important is that he runs less risk of acquiring
a cramped method, since the man who crouches over
the ball is likely to find the free movement of his
wrists circumscribed by the other outlying portions
of his anatomy. For some clubs, at any rate, a fairly
upright attitude seems almost essential. I never saw
any one putt well with a wooden putter who adopted
what may be called the grovelling method. For some
mysterious reason this club absolutely insists upon
its votaries standing fearlessly up as if they were not
ashamed either of themselves or their club, and its
aluminium imitator, if not so exacting, will certainly

PUTTING 131

do as little as it can for the grovellers. On the other
hand, those who use palpably lofted iron clubs, such
as the rare old cleeks of which I spoke before, nearly
all hold their club rather low on the shaft and get
down close to the ball. Mr. Laidlay I have already
quoted, and Lord Winchilsea, Mr. Graham-Murray,
and Mr. Stuart Wyatt are other names that occur to
me ; all these four are very good putters and all
adopt a partially grovelling attitude. An exception
must therefore be made in their case, but then their
clubs are rather exceptional too, so that I need not on
their account go back on what I originally said.

As to the distance between the feet, there is only
this one thing to be said, that any one who is grievously
conscious of letting his body sway may be well
advised to try a rather straddling stance. It is by
no means a certain remedy that I can vouch for
but it may temporarily or even permanently alleviate.
The distance that the player will stand away from his
ball will be to a great extent regulated by the lie of
the club which he elects to use, since it is a good
general rule to sole the club at its natural angle.
The exception which proves this rule is one of the
very best of cleek putters, Mr. H. S. Colt, who has the
toe of his club so high in the air that the extreme
heel appears to be the only portion of the face available
for use. Generally it may be said that, in putting as
in other strokes, to come too close to the ball is apt to
interfere with freedom.

Most people putt with a more or less pronouncedly
open stance, though there is no particular reason

132 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

why a man, if he have a mind to it, should not aim
with admirable results in the direction of square leg.
Indeed, I am by no means sure that such an exag-
geration of the square stance in putting is not less
likely to be disastrous than the converse exaggeration
of the open stance. To stand with the right foot
very far forward is to run some risk of becoming
cramped by reason of the right arm and elbow being
too firmly embedded in some portion of the body.
I say this both from personal experience and from the
watching of others, but it is only right to add that
Jack White, who is one of the very best putters in
existence, often carries the open stance to its extreme
limit. The nearer he gets to the ball the more his
right foot comes forward, and in certain moods he
holes out his short putts with his right foot absolutely
behind the ball, so that it almost seems as if he must
hit his foot in taking back his club.

When the Badminton volume on golf was first
published, some twenty-one years ago, it was stated
that the putting position adopted by the professionals
almost without exception was that of having the ball
almost opposite the right foot. I do not think that
such a statement could truthfully be made nowadays ;
indeed, I should say that the general run of professional
and professionally moulded putters, although they
have the right foot forward, have the ball very much
more nearly opposite to the left heel than the right
toe. This fact, if it be a fact, is one of purely
historical importance as showing a change in fashion.
Putting has not noticeably improved nor is the new

PUTTING 133

attitude in any way superior to the old ; the younger
generations have by common consent produced no
putter better than young Tom Morris, who putted in
the old style ; possibly indeed none so good.

The feet are the chief consideration in this question
of putting attitude, but there is something also to
be said about the arms. One thing that is noticeable
in the style of a number of fine putters is that they
keep the left arm well away from the body. It
is sometimes said that this makes it easier to keep
the club passing backwards and forwards over the
straight line. Of this I am not wholly convinced, and
should rather say that the merit of this plan is that it
makes it easier to restrain the movement of the arms
and putt merely with the wrists. This left arm well
away is, at any rate, characteristic of the style of Mr.
Hutchinson, who putts with a wonderfully free wrist,
and others that occur to me are Mr. Mure Fergusson,
one of the very finest and most determined of holers
out, Mr. Low and Mr. Fowler. It would appear to be
more characteristic of amateurs than of professionals :
at least I cannot think of many examples from the
professional ranks, except Taylor, as a rule an excel-
lent putter, who has a decided crook of the left elbow.

I feel more inclined to be dogmatic about the right
arm and elbow, which should, I think, be as close as
is comfortable to the right side. This right arm well
tucked in is a feature of the style of one of the best
and most graceful of putters, Tom Ball, and I know
that it represents one of the cardinal principles of
putting, according to the Rev. A. H. Cochran, an

134 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

admirable wielder of the wooden putter. To keep the
right elbow far out from the body has the effect of
stiffening the right wrist and checking the swing,
and those who indulge in the habit have generally a
‘ poky ‘ way of hitting at the ball. Moreover, the
right arm almost certainly needs some support ;
otherwise the club is apt to be taken back on an
unsteady and wavering line.

There is one thing quite essential to putting which I
have only mentioned casually and incidentally, and
that is the ball. This I did of malice aforethought,
so as not to confuse the issue, but there are always two
things, by no means original but incalculably important,
which must be said about the ball. You must keep
your eye upon it and must hit it hard enough.

As to the first point, it is impossible to be too
emphatic. I believe it to be possible, at any rate in
driving and possibly also in iron play, to keep the
eye too fiercely on the ball. The player who, with a
laudable desire to imitate the photographs of Taylor,
keeps his eye too conscientiously at the place where
the ball used to be, runs some risk of restricting the
freedom of his longer strokes, but there is no recorded
instance of a similar calamity on the putting-green.
There is no necessity for the player to move his head
in the very least degree until the ball has come to
rest, let us hope, in the bottom of the hole, so that the
longer he keeps his eye motionless the better. I may
add that he is not only to be on his guard against
lifting the eye towards the hole, but also against
letting it follow the club as it is taken back. It is a

PUTTING 135

great temptation just to take a glance at the club
head to see if it is going back rigidly straight, but it
is a temptation to be resisted ; there are few things
more inimical to true and free hitting.

As to the second point, a most valuable but
inordinately long sermon might be preached as to
the enormous importance of being up. I will refrain
from preaching it, but if the learner desires a more
interesting and practical lesson, let him go and look
at a tournament in which the very best players,
professional or amateur, are engaged. He will soon
discover how prevalent is the vice of shortness even
in the highest circles, and how many strokes, holes,
and matches it costs.

There is really little that can helpfully be said on
the subject, save this, that if a man be constantly
short he will often be found to be letting go of his
putter at the critical moment ; wherefore let him see
to it that his grip is firm. There is, too, as regards
holing out, that admirable piece of advice of Sir
Walter Simpson, not to underrate the ‘ catching
power ‘ of the hole. The question is really one of
moral qualities, and I am not a moral essayist.

(6) ON TAKING THE LINE

So much for the stroke itself. Perhaps it is a great
deal too much, and yet the subject is so difficult and
mysterious that there are doubtless enormous tracts
both of knowledge and speculation that I have left
untouched. Now, by a process of putting the horse

136 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

behind the cart, I come to those preliminary investi-
gations of the line which have to be mastered before
the ball is struck.

That the time spent on studying the line is very
well spent may be seen from the example of nearly
all the best putters ; of whom none putt really quickly,
and some with a deliberation that, in the eyes of the
irreverent, amounts to slowness. I remember once
to have watched a match-play tournament for young
assistant professionals, and never did I see matches
played at such break-neck speed. Much of the golf
from the tee and through the green was excellent,
but the putting was, with one or two exceptions,
dreadfully weak. Hardly any of the players took any
time to consider their putts, their sole desire being
apparently to get a tiresome business over as soon as
possible ; it was a desire that really defeated its own
end, for many of them played a sadly large number of
shots upon the green. I do not know if any of the
competitors learned wisdom from that tournament,
but I feel sure that some of the spectators must have
done so. The golfer who is inclined to self -conscious-
ness is rather apt to put himself off by a very solemn
study of his putts ; he thinks he is taking too long
and that other people are thinking that he is taking
too long, so that his last state is worse than his first.
It is a natural feeling, but it is one to be fought against
with might and main, for, save possibly on a green
which is as flat as a pancake and so unworthy of the
name of green, putting is not a thing to be done
quickly.

PUTTING 137

Some very fine putters make a practice of always
or nearly always scanning the line of the putt, not
only from ball to hole, but from hole to ball. This
must sometimes, one is inclined to think, be a work
of supererogation, and in any case it must in a
measure depend on the individual temperament of the
player whether such extreme deliberation is a benefit
or a hindrance, but in all instances of real difficulty
it is certainly a wise precaution to take. The line
seen from behind the hole sometimes differs materially
from that seen from behind the ball, and it is, I think,
a maxim of most good putters that in cases of doubt
the line seen from the hole is the one to adopt.

Besides the line there are other considerations,
such, of course, as the pace of the green and less
obviously the wind. Putting in a strong wind is
always a most unpleasant business, because it is so
very hard to keep the body still, but, apart from this,
it is a very common fault to underestimate the effect
of the wind upon the travelling power of the ball.
Nothing is commoner than to see a man hopelessly
short when playing a long putt on a big open green in
the teeth of a strong wind. I am also reminded by
reading again the excellent work of Braid, one of
the most thoughtful of putters, that it is very well
worth observing whether or not the green has recently
been cut, and if so which way the machine cutter has
been taken over the grass. When the green presents
an appearance of alternate light and dark stripes,
‘ the points of grass facing you,’ says Braid, ‘ give a
dark complexion to the green, so that the light stripes

138 ‘ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

represent the fast sections of the green and the dark
ones the slower sections.’ Light and keen, dark and
slow ; it may be very profitable to remember.

A propos of taking the line, it may be said that there
are two different ways of aiming at the hole. Some
people only consider the two main factors, the ball
and the hole ; others fix on some spot of ground on
the line to the hole and concentrate their attention
on trying to make the ball pass over that spot. I
must confess that I have never been able to master
this latter system, a fact which I regard rather in its
favour than otherwise. I can, therefore, recommend
it only on the assurance of others. Those others are,
however, very good putters, and I believe that the
best putters do adopt this plan of aiming, not at the
hole, but at a spot of ground near to it, so that the
ambitious putter should certainly not abandon this
plan without a thorough trial. Whichever is the system
he adopts, one thing is tolerably certain, that once the
player hag decided on the point to aim at, he should
hit the ball as quickly as is consistent with a complete
absence of hurrying. Once the stance is taken up,
hanging over the ball is almost sure to be detrimental,
and if the player feels uncomfortable, it is better that
he should come right away from the ball and start again.
Mr. Low tells us that having made sure of his line, he
sometimes walks up to his ball and hits it without so
much as another glance at the hole. This may be for
some a counsel of perfection, but it is impossible to
doubt that too much aiming is bad ; the player
either falls into a state resembling catalepsy, or into

PUTTING 139

overmuch knuckling over of hands and knees. In
the one he becomes too rigid ; in the other not steady
enough ; nor is the fact that traces of this knuckling
movement are to be seen in the style of many profes-
sional putters any recommendation. Probably there
was once some great putter of whose style it was a
natural feature, but with most people it is merely a
piece of imitative lumber serving no useful purpose
and tending to harmful moving of the body.

There is one more putting problem connected with
the taking of the line. In playing a ‘ borrowing ‘
putt, i.e. one in which due allowance has to be made
for a slope, the player has, as a rule, to aim at a much
greater nicety of strength than in a perfectly plain-
sailing stroke. A very small variation in strength
makes all the difference in the degree to which the
ball will be affected by the slope, and, moreover, a
ball that is hit only a very little too hard is terribly
apt to kick out of the hole. The player has therefore
to play to ‘ drop ‘ his putt, as it is called ; to hit it
with exactly the right strength and no more. This
is so delicate and difficult a business than any way
of mitigating the difficulty is worth considering.

There is another way, though it is doubtful, not
only whether it can possibly come under the head
of elementary instruction, but also whether a great
many people will not find it worse instead of better.
It consists in playing a putt either with slice or pull,
so as in a measure to neutralise the slope. If the
slope is from right to left, the player will slice the ball
against the slope with a cross-wise cutting motion of

140 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

the club ; if from left to right, he will pull it off the
toe with something of a turning-over movement of the
right wrist. Since the hook or slice will be fighting
against the slope, much less borrow will have to be
allowed for, and sometimes the player will be able to
play almost straight at the hole. Consequently he
will not have to be so nicely accurate in the matter
of strength, and can hit the ball with greater freedom
and boldness. But this slicing and hooking of putts
is a subtle business, and will need much practice
before the player can feel sufficient confidence to try
it in a serious match. In the hands of an accom-
plished putter it is doubtless a valuable weapon ;
with those less skilful it is apt to be a double-edged
one, and should at any rate be used in strict modera-
tion.

The excessive violence of those who advocate the
abolition of the stymie sometimes drives those who
defend it into the use of language that is likewise
excessive. The abolitionists talk as if no stymie
could be circumvented, which is sheer nonsense,
and their opponents are apt to retort that there is
no stymie that is impossible, which is taking rather
an optimistic view of the situation. It is quite safe
to say, however, that a great many stymies are called
impossible, either through ignorance or the fury of
the moment, which are not only possible to circumvent
but in many cases reasonably easy. When the
adversary’s ball lies at a distance of more than six

PUTTING 141

inches between the player’s ball and the hole, there
are, broadly speaking, two courses for the latter to
adopt : he must putt his ball so as to make it go
round the blockading ball or he must loft it over.

As to the first, it may be said that the ball can be
made to turn only to a very small extent if the player
has nothing to depend on but his own skill, but there
are comparatively few greens on which there is not
some little turn in the ground, and a very little help
from the ground makes an enormous difference. So
it is particularly essential to repress the impotent fury
natural under the circumstances, and study the lie of
the ground with the most meticulous care. It is also
to be noted that the nature of the grass makes a great
deal of difference, and that the ball can be made to
turn far more on a green that is comparatively keen
than on one that is slow and heavy. Finally, it may
be laid down with some confidence that it is far easier
to make the ball turn from left to right than from
right to left ; the slice, as ever, is easier than the pull.

I will assume that the player, having duly considered
all these things, decides to play round the offending
ball, and that he proposes to pass it on the left-hand
side. The stroke, though capable of being played
either very badly or very well, is yet a comparatively
simple one, in that it is to be played with a slicing
motion of the club, and to take the club out to the
right and draw it across the line to the left is a natural
often an incorrigibly natural movement. For the
playing of this stroke either a putting cleek or even
an iron is preferable to a wooden or aluminium putter ;

142 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

from the face of the latter the ball seems to leap too
quickly away, before the cut has, so to speak, had time
to work. Having taken his iron club, the player
turns the face preferably a little out to the right,
and plays a cutting shot across the line from right to
left. He must not expect to see the ball describe a
large and beautiful curve, because no human skill
can make it do that ; but it will take every possible
advantage of any helpful slope, and if it hits the
corner of the hole it will, if I may so describe it,
bite the edge and fall in ; whereas a ball played
without any cut would resolutely decline to go out
of its way. If the ball has to be played so as to come
in from right to left, the stroke is theoretically the
exact converse of the one just described, but prac-
tically the exact converse of that slicing process is
unattainable. To take the club inwards towards the
body, and then to push it outwards across the line,
is an unnatural and almost impossibly difficult feat.
To attempt this outward cut to the same extent as
the inward is to court disaster. The best thing
that the player can do and bad is the best is to
take some fairly lofted club, hit the ball off the
extreme point of the nose, taking the club back slightly
towards the body and encouraging the hook in
moderation by the turning-over movement of the right
wrist. When it is essential to hook the ball to any
perceptible extent, he will be well advised to consider
very seriously the desirability of a lofting stroke.

This lofting stroke is often, of course, the only one
possible. It is regarded with hopeless awe by many

PUTTING 143

golfers, and if successfully played produces louder
thunders of applause than any other. Yet as often as
not the stroke is not a really difficult one, if only the
player be not too much overwhelmed by his own
audacity in attempting it. When the two balls are
close together and the hole is some little way off,
the stroke really presents no vast difficulties ; indeed,
the mere consciousness of having a magnificent excuse
for missing will make many a man hole out under
such circumstances who would have missed a straight-
forward putt with no ball in the way. Even when
the hole is so close that the ball has to be pitched
right into it or on to the very lip, the shot is by no
manner of means impossible, if only the striker have
sufficient confidence in his club and do not try to do
all the work himself. Too often we see the stroke
attempted on the lines of a curtailed mashie shot.
The victim attempts to cut the ball heavily, picks
up his hand quickly in order to ensure a sharp rise,
and performs many other futile and laborious actions
with a quite incommensurate result. He relies wholly
on himself and not at all on his club. If, on the other
hand, he had merely taken a lofted club and putted
with it, he would as likely as not have been successful.
The club must of course be well lofted either a
mashie, [the face of which is well set back, or a
niblick. I incline to think the mashie the better
club, since there is something about the thick sole of
the niblick that suggests a difficulty in gliding smoothly
under the ball. Best, perhaps, of all is one of those
ancient lofting-irons with a vast expanse of face,

144 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

tremendously set back, that are occasionally and
irreverently called shovels. I am happy in the
possession of a specimen that emerged from Tom
Dunn’s shop at North Berwick in the very early
eighties, and is a wonderful overcomer of stymies.
A sufficiently lofted club, used almost exactly after
the manner of a putter, will get the ball quite high
enough into the air to clear the biggest golf-ball that
ever was made. As in putting, the club should be
taken back close to the ground, and should follow
through in the same way ; anything in the nature of a
deliberate picking up of the club only adds to the
difficulties and possesses no compensating advantage
whatever. Even to call the stroke a pitch is to run
some risk of getting a wrong idea of it into one’s head.
To think of it purely as a putt is some way towards
coping with it.

There are many stymies that are to all intents and
purposes insuperable, and one of the most deadly is
laid when the opponent’s ball is within an inch or two
of the hole, and the player’s ball is some considerable
distance away. It is humanly possible to play the
ball so that it shall pitch just short of the obstacle
and clear it at the first bounce, but to attempt it is
indeed a desperate measure. It is also possible to
play a running-through shot as in billiards, but I only
once remember to have seen it accomplished. I
remember that one occasion very vividly, because in
a certain international match at Sandwich I thought
I had stymied Mr. John Low very satisfactorily, only
to see my own ball driven far away and his nestling

PUTTING 145

in the bottom of the hole. I ought to add that Mr.
W. E. Fairlie, one of the very best of all putters,
became at one time so skilful in the playing of this
shot that he could, I believe, accomplish it more
often than not. That, however, was with a gutty,
and the stroke is a much more difficult one with the
rubber-cored ball.

CHAPTER VII
ON FAULTS IN GENERAL

EVERY golfer is at times out of form, either generally
or particularly, as regards some one club or stroke.
Even the rawest beginner will fall at times perceptibly
below his necessarily humble standard, and as surely
as he does, so surely will he begin to inquire, ‘ What
is he doing wrong ? ‘ This moment, at which the
inquiring instinct first dawns in his infant mind,
is a very important one, because on his ability to
inquire in a reasonable manner, and to prevent
himself from inquiring too much, his future happiness
will very largely depend. He may grow either into
a rational and intelligent person, or into a miserable,
restless style-hunter, flying madly from theory to
theory, never settling down to anything worthy of
the name of golf.

On this subject the late Sir Walter Simpson was
at once the most brilliantly amusing and the most
hopelessly depressing of all writers. He analysed
with a pitiless and wonderful penetration all the insane
fancies that golfers imagine themselves to carry hidden
in the innermost recesses of their poor vain little
minds. As I read the Art of Oolf I give to every
other word a personal application ; I feel as if I were

ON FAULTS IN GENERAL 147

in church one miserable little being against whom
the preacher is directly thundering, regardless of all
the rest of the congregation. As an exponent of
those follies to be avoided Sir Walter is unsurpassable,
but he gives little positive help. His gospel is one
of gloom, almost of despair. * Aim more carefully ‘ ;
that is the one piece of advice that he gives, as if he
had a genuine belief in it. Nothing else matters :
we may imagine vain things, but we all come to miss
the ball at last.

Now this will not entirely satisfy the enthusiastic
golfer : he wants a policy more constructive and more
cheerful. At the same time, one of the most valuable
pieces of knowledge in the curing of golfing ailments
is the knowledge of what to avoid, and one of the
things most carefully to be avoided is any undue
precipitation in diagnosis. The golfer who is at the
very threshold of his career as such should be
particularly careful. He is not to go a-hunting after
the will o’ the wisp of some new trick or ‘ tip ‘ ; he is
not to think too much about what he is doing wrong.
He will for some time have his hands full in trying
to do rightly what he has been taught. With him
the action of hitting a golf-ball is still such a new
and unaccustomed one that he is bound, in the nature
of things, to have many failures. It does not follow,
because he hit the ball last time and did not hit it
this time, that he has therefore fallen into some
definable error.

The more advanced golfer, to whom this chapter is
more particularly addressed, ought likewise to be in

148 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

no hurry to discover and remedy faults. I have
heard a good player say of himself that he was playing
well because ‘ he did not mind making a bad shot.’
He accepted the bad shot, if it came, as something
that must occasionally and inevitably happen, and
did not bother himself as to why it had happened,
or whether it was going to happen again. That is
primarily the frame of mind to be cultivated. An
occasional mistake is to be disregarded altogether,
and even a considerable series is best dealt with at
first by the policy of ‘ Aim more carefully.’ It is
wonderful how often it is successful. Under this
policy of careful aiming I include two or three other
things : the time-honoured maxims, for example, of
‘ Slow back,’ ‘ Don’t press,’ and 4 Keep your eye on
the ball.’ They are so valuable, for the reason that,
unlike some other remedies, they cannot do much
harm even if they do but little good.

This is a treatment that is peculiarly applicable to
a breakdown that is general rather than particular.
Either because he has lost confidence or is out of
practice, or for one of fifty other possible reasons,
the golfer may be playing more or less badly with all
his clubs. In such a case it is fairly clear that he
has neither the requisite time nor intelligence to think
out reasons and remedies to fit all his mishaps. If
he tries to do so, he must almost inevitably go from
bad to worse. It is essentially a case for what has
been called c general treatment.’ Similarly, although
he may only be * off it ‘ as regards one particular club,
his disease may be of a purely general kind. If he

ON FAULTS IN GENERAL 149

hook his first drive, slice his second, top his third and
follow this with a series of sclaffs, the inference is
that there is no one remedy of so all-embracing a
character as to cure him straightway of all his diseases
at once. It is a case for patient, painstaking plodding,
and for discarding from the mind everything except
the most elementary theories. All the misfortunes
above mentioned, and many more also, may come
from his hitting far too hard or from his never looking
at his ball. It is almost inconceivable that they
can come from any minor and more recondite cause,
and the victim ought to treat himself after the manner
of a general practitioner rather than a specialist.

On the other hand, it may often be that he is con-
tinuously making the same kind of mistake and no
other ; all his drives may be hooked or every ball hit
from the extreme socket of the iron. After this has
gone on for some time he may be allowed the luxury
of a more particular diagnosis. It is probable that
some one thing is amiss, and there is at least a hope
that some one remedy will put the matter right.

Now, in this search for faults and remedies there
appears to me to be one particularly important rule :
Go for the big things and let the little ones look after
themselves. There is an enormous variety of minor
faults, but they may all be divided into a comparatively
small number of big classes. The thing to do, if pos-
sible, is to locate the fault only so far as to place it in
one of the big classes. Sometimes, of course, some very
slight alteration of stance or swing a toe turned out
here or there, a new twiddle added to or subtracted

150 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

from the waggle may inspire confidence and so
work wonders. But this, after all, is a great piece of
luck. It will not happen often, and the man who
spends his time hunting for just the right, inspiring
twiddle may have a weary quest of it.

‘ I knew I should get you out/ said a famous and
insidious old slow bowler to a young batsman.

‘ Yes/ said the batsman, ‘ but I got eighty runs
first/

So here, too, it is a question of counting the cost.
The right twiddle will doubtless be found in time,
but the searcher will often have lost many half-crowns
before he finds it. If he had proceeded on saner and
larger lines he would have made a much quicker and
also a more permanent recovery.

This is a point to be remembered not only when we
are playing badly, but when, if so blessed a circum-
stance ever occur, we are playing well. On those
happy days when the ball flies so sweetly and easily
away, it is of course foolish to note our symptoms too
closely. If we do that, we shall soon be trying not to
hit the ball far and sure, but to hit it exactly as we
hit the one before, and this way lies one of the most
facile descents to perdition with which I am acquainted.
But if we can, without thinking too much about it,
note some particular good quality on a large scale
which is now present and is too often absent, we may
acquire a valuable store of knowledge. Some abstruse
kink of the little finger may have started us on our
course of improvement, by giving us confidence. But
it was the confidence and not the little finger that

ON FAULTS IN GENERAL 151

smoothed out our swing for us and made it slower ;
that kept the body still and let the arms follow through.
Those are the things we ought to notice, and the little
finger, having served its purpose, should be instantly
cast aside with the blackest ingratitude.

And now, to go back to our search for faults, it is
often as well to take another opinion besides our own,
if a competent one can be obtained. Sometimes we
know perfectly well what we are doing wrongly, and
the whole difficulty is to do it rightly, but at other
times we may feel fairly sure and yet be very glad of
a confirmation. There are times, moreover, when we
are at our wits’ end, being only conscious of missing
the ball with an extreme feeling of discomfort. Here
the external observer will be most valuable, and there
is this especially to be said for him ; he will only see
the big general faults, and will not lead us on a futile
twiddle-hunt because, not being able to feel our most
intimate sensations, he will be perfectly unconscious
of fifty minor things that we imagine ourselves to be
doing.

Having by our own intelligence or that of others
discovered our faults, what are we to do next ? The
most delightfully simple, and generally the best course,
is merely to try to refrain from doing the things that
we ought not to do. Thus, we are taking up the
club too fast or too straight : what we have to do is
to take it up slowly or with a flatter sweep. So far
so good, but there are faults more difficult to deal with.
Suppose, for instance, that we are putting our body
too soon into the downward swing, and so letting

152 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

body and hands go through before the club. The
obvious prescription is simply to hold the body back,
but in this case it is often a little too obvious and of
no real service. Then we have to cast about for some
other cure, and some two or three may suggest them-
selves, all about equally hopeful. When this happens,
it is always worth inquiring whether we have in fact
run the fault to earth, if such a metaphor is allowable.
Have we really burrowed quite deep enough ? It
is quite likely that we have not, and we must go
deeper still in order, if possible, to find some simpler
and more fundamental fault, which is in truth the
cause, and for which there is but one remedy. There
generally is such a fault if we can only find it, and,
whatever the remedy ultimately decided upon, that
remedy should always be given a reasonably long
trial. It is futile to abandon it merely because the
first shot or two do not show a marvellous improvement.
There is always likely to be some discomfort at first,
but the patient must give the cure a fair chance,
and if he tries to keep an open mind he will soon find
out if he is on the right track. It is one of the
advantages of having our own diagnosis confirmed by
a competent observer that we are then the more
inclined to give this fair chance, and not abandon the
remedy at once with a despairing cry of ‘ That ‘s no
good.’

I have just two more pieces of general advice.
The first is that the golfer should start afresh with
each fresh illness. He should consider his lamentable
case de novo and not hark back, without taking thought,

ON FAULTS IN GENERAL 153

to some cure that proved effective in one of his
previous seizures. ‘ So-and-so told me to put my
right foot further back, and I drove magnificently,’
says many an unthinking person, to whom I would
reply, ‘ Yes, my dear sir, but it is likely that he said
that because you were then standing with your right
foot too far forward. At this present moment you
are standing with the left foot forward as if about to
hit to square leg.’

The second piece of advice is not to go on trying
remedies for ever. If a man cannot within a reason-
able time discover that he is doing any one definite
thing wrong, and those who know his game cannot
discover it either, then it is clear that his is after all
a case for general treatment, and that he had better
eliminate from his mind everything save those two
essentials, the club and the ball. When this fails too,
it is sometimes wise to give up the game for a while
and enjoy complete repose. In that case it is really
to be complete repose, and there is to be no swinging
privily in the front hall or pitching into well-padded
armchairs. Faults may sometimes disappear and the
golfer be himself again when he emerges from retire-
ment, but as a rule it is otherwise, and the fault is
too deeply rooted to be so easily driven out. Whether
we are generally stale and jaded with too much golf,
or whether we have acquired some particular and
atrocious habit, the best cure is the most painful, to
go on manfully plodding through despair and dark-
ness. The ray of light will surely come in time.

154 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

(a) PARTICULAR FAULTS

I have dealt with faults in general, and I now come
to particular faults, and first of all to those which beset
the driver. Of these the first and most elementary
is doubtless that of topping ; to the beginner it is the
most dreadful of all, but to the seasoned golfer not
nearly so terrible as several others. Topping implies
that the ball is struck upon the top, but the term is
also loosely used to describe any method of striking
that causes the ball to run along the ground when
the striker desires it to soar into the air. Of topping
proper there is not a great deal to say. We top the
ball when for some reason perhaps we are stiff or
cold or nervous we do not get properly down to it ;
or again because we take the eye off too soon. An
attack does not often last very long, and as a rule all
that is needed to arrest its ravages are patience, care,
and concentration. Mr. Everard has instanced a
golfer who ‘ teed his ball in a hole ‘ so as to compel
himself to get down to it. Without resorting to such
heroic measures as this, a low tee will sometimes induce
greater carefulness, and, further, it will be well to make
sure of looking at the side of the ball rather than at
the top of it.

The ball may run along the ground with equal
obstinacy when hit in one or two other and quite
different ways. It may be struck far back off the
heel of the club. In that case the player may be
standing too close to his ball, or he may be standing
at the proper distance, but with his weight too far

ON FAULTS IN GENERAL 166

forward on his toes, so that he falls in on the ball as he
hits. Conceivably he is falling in because he is standing
too far away, but this is by far the most unlikely
hypothesis of the three. Also, he may be cutting with
his club across the ball, a vice to be dealt with later
when we come to slicing.

Again, the player may hit the ball in the middle of
the club, and that without hitting only its extreme
scalp, and yet it may cling obstinately to the turf.
In this case he is in grip of the ghastly disease known
as foundering, far commoner, save with the quite
rudimentary, than topping, and far more difficult to
cure. It is a disease worthy of the deepest study,
since it is an absolute bar to all timing, and, as
regards results at any rate, is very closely allied to
slicing.

Foundering hardly needs description, for nearly
every one has suffered. It consists, roughly speaking,
in letting the body come forward too far and too
soon as the club comes down. The result is that the
hands come down before the club head, and when
the club head does ultimately arrive it is with its
face turned downwards on the ball. The inevitable
result is that the ball is driven right into the ground
with a heavy ‘ dunt.’ In aggravated cases it never
leaves the ground again ; in the milder ones it ricochets
and executes a low and scuttling flight with a tendency
to swerve to the right. Though occasionally effective
when there are no bunkers in the way and a strong
head wind, this method is but a miserable travesty
of driving and bound to be disastrous in the end.

156 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

The mischief, as a rule, is too deeply seated for the
simple remedy of holding the body resolutely back.
Your true founderer begins his error at a much earlier
stage of the swing : I speak as one partially reformed,
yet always liable to fall back into bad old ways.
There is generally a perceptible jump about his back
swing : he does not keep his head by any means
rigidly still, and there is a decided and ominous lift
of the club as it nears the top of the swing. The
swing starts well enough : the wrists and body begin
by turning properly. Then, when the club has gone
about halfway up, comes the straying from virtue.
It is so much easier to pick up the club straight than
to go on turning, and so up goes the club with a jerk,
up go head and body with it, and at the top of the
swing everything is out of gear : the player’s head
is too high in the air, so is the head of his club, so are
his right shoulder and his right elbow ; the left wrist
is not sufficiently under the shaft and the twist of the
body is very imperfect. Then there is an inevitable
plunge forward of the body, and the club comes down
far too vertically, first on to the ball and thence into
the ground.

The prime fault is then to be found, as it nearly
always is, in the method of taking up the club. Hence
the remedy lies in taking the club back properly,
especially in preventing the head the player’s, not the
club’s from moving upwards, and in taking greater
trouble to see that the turning movement of the
body is rigidly executed. To this end ‘ slow back ‘
should not be forgotten, because the quicker the back

ON FAULTS IN GENERAL 157

swing, the easier it is to get into a habit of shirk-
ing the body-turn ; the vice of hurrying is a most
valuable ally to that of foundering. It may also be
useful to curb the right hand rather severely for a
while, and see that it is not allowed to take charge of
the back swing. The body, however, is the real enemy.
If it can only be compelled to turn truly and freely, the
fear of foundering should never be a very grave one.

From this point I can pass naturally to slicing, a
term loosely used to signify the striking of the ball in
such a way that it flies in a more or less pronounced
curve to the right. Now this hideous result can be
produced, like that of topping, in several different
ways. To founder is not to slice, in the most accurate
sense of the word, but the consequences are often much
the same. Since in a foundered shot the hands come
down in front of the club head, there is a natural
tendency to push the ball out to the right. Moreover,
since the turn of the body was not properly completed
and the right shoulder has never got far enough
round, there is also a decided tendency to cut across
the ball from right to left. The habitual founderer’s
club, after plunging down into the earth, leaves a
tell-tale mark upon the turf. Let him examine this
mark carefully, and he will see that it does not point
straight on the line whereon he meant to hit the ball,
but palpably from right to left. So the man who is
persistently hitting his ball to the right should always
consider whether his disease is not in fact foundering
in its milder form. If it is, he has the remedy I have
endeavoured to describe.

158 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

The slicer proper does not clunt his ball into the
ground ; rather does he sky it too high into the air.
This he achieves by cutting more or less outrageously
across the ball and finishing with his hands round his
waist instead of thrown well out in front of him.
Sometimes it may be that he has fallen into too circular
a method of swinging. He takes the club back too
low, round his waist instead of over his shoulder,
so that it finishes in a corresponding position. Sir
Walter Simpson has well said that many golfers
misconceive the nature of a drive, and 4 visualize a
swing as a scythe-like motion, not as a straight,
forward sweep.’ The remedy here is an obvious one,
namely to take the club up higher and well over the
shoulder. I may add that I have sometimes found it
very useful, when suffering thus, to determine that
the right arm shall brush against the right side in the
down swing and to concentrate the mind chiefly on
this point. This seems to throw the arms well out
in front of the body in the follow-through, and to
prevent them from sidling away to the left in accord-
ance with their natural and vicious propensities.

Another slicer of a slightly different kind habitually
swings his club too far out to the right, so that the
arms lose the support of the body and are almost
certain to cut across the ball on the way down. This
poor cowardly fellow has probably tried to make
allowance for his slice instead of wrestling with it.
He has aimed further and further to the left of the
proper line. Now he should take up a bolder and
more defiant attitude, and aim with moderation but

ON FAULTS IN GENERAL 159

quite deliberately in that direction of which he is so
greatly afraid. This alteration in his stance will
often enable him to attain his object, namely, the
taking of the club decidedly more inwards in the up
swing.

Finally, slicing can also be produced by too
vigorous a dropping of the right shoulder in the down
swing, sometimes accompanied by a pronounced fall-
ing back of the body after the ball is struck. This
method of hitting is generally characteristic of those
who suffer from too exuberant a freedom of body
movement and too much bending of the knees.

As compared with slicing, hooking is one of the
most harmless things in the world. A slight natural
tendency to hook may be regarded on the whole as a
blessing, and intentional hooking is an art that can
be brought to great perfection. This, however, is
beyond my elementary scope, and I deal here only
with hooking in an exaggerated form, when it is a vice
and not a virtue. A bad attack of pulling very seldom
lasts long, and can generally be cured without much
difficulty. There are, to be sure, those who have
acquired a trick of turning over the right wrist too
soon and too much, and this is a habit that may take
some eradicating. Again, those who hold the right
hand very markedly underneath the club are always
credited with being constitutional hookers, and no
doubt this grip of the right hand does conduce to
hooking, but it is also apt to conduce to wildness of
all kinds, and I have seen the most chronic and
confirmed slicers who held their clubs in this way.

160 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

Speaking generally, however, by far the most
common cause of hooking is hitting too hard, and this
is a fault that ought to be easily abated. Also,
because the slightly hooked ball is the longest that
can be driven, there is a great temptation, in addition
to that of hitting hard, to face rather out to the right
and make allowance for the hook. In the strictest
moderation this may be all very well, but the danger
of exaggeration is great. To stand further round to
the left and hit more gently will generally effect a
cure.

Sclaffing, which is, being interpreted, hitting the
ground behind the ball, is another of the occasional
diseases, and in its occasional form may be dis-
regarded. Sometimes it is chronic, and then it is almost
sure to bespeak a swing too straight up and down ;
the remedy is naturally to be found in a swing that
is flatter.

Habitually to mistime the shot is lamentably
common, but this disease is almost too vague a one
to justify any specific prescription. It is, moreover,
essentially one for general treatment. There is usually
something radically wrong in the up swing, and the
best thing to do is to verify with care and patience the
nature of that upward swing. It is generally quite
futile to try deliberately to put in some extra flick of
the wrists at the right moment. It is far more to the
purpose to swing carefully and easily, and so give
body and club the chance of arriving at the ball in
the right position. Mistiming can of course be of
two kinds. A man may come down too soon on the

ON FAULTS IN GENERAL 161

ball or he may come too late ; the hands may come
down in front of the club head or behind it. The
latter fault, however, is very rare ; it is infinitely more
common to be in too much of a hurry. The player
who is constantly too soon may be referred back to
the description of a foundering style ; it will probably
be a fairly good description of his own.

Turning now to iron clubs, I may perhaps venture to
pass by the longer shots, the full cleek shot and the
very nearly full iron shot. As regards these, a player
is very likely to commit much the same faults as he
does with his wooden clubs. No peculiar treatment,
unless it be a general shortening and stiffening up of
the whole swing, need be recommended.

Now, as regards the strokes that range from a half-
shot downwards, it seems to me that faults cannot be
separated into quite such clear-cut divisions as can
those in the play with wooden clubs. A player is
not so often, as regards his half -shots or wrist-shots,
a chronic slicer or hooker or topper ; rather is he, I
fancy, a general muddler. If he has no one besetting
sin, it is not because he is virtuous, but because he is
so sinful through and through, and therefore the
sermon or prescription suitable to him should be of
a more general character.

I should say that the two big, all-pervading faults
in the average golfer’s iron play are those of hurrying
too much and not standing still enough. The great
thing in iron play I have said this before is control ;
the whole performance is to be, comparatively speaking,
a stiff one. There is apt to be with most players far

162 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

too much movement of the feet, a movement that
naturally begins with the left foot. I have certainly
observed in my own case that when I am playing my
irons least badly, I am firmest on my feet, and I have
sometimes cured other people by telling them not to
dance on the left toe. Moreover, the comparative
immobility of the feet is a noticeable feature in the
style of the best iron players. To allow anything
more than the suspicion of a turn of the left foot
when playing a comparatively short pitching shot
must be unnecessary and wrong, but it is very
commonly seen nevertheless. Similarly, it must be a
sounder policy to finish these shorter shots with both
feet planted firmly on the ground. The longer the
shot the more movement will be necessary and allow-
able, but to keep as still as is humanly possible is a
sound working rule.

As regards the fault of hurrying, it is perhaps more
fatally easy to fall into it while playing a half-shot
than in any other stroke. When the player is taking
a full swing, the fact of his taking the club over his
shoulder seems to make a natural pause infinitesi-
mally small of course and to give the club breathing
space before it comes down again. But when the
club does not, if I may so express it, have the trouble
of turning the corner of the shoulder, there seems no
reason why it should not come down again as quickly
as ever it can, and it generally does come down like a
misdirected flash of lightning. Yet the iron shot
ought to be a particularly leisurely performance ;
the club head should be given plenty of time, and the

ON FAULTS IN GENERAL 163

cultivation of a tiny pause at the top of the swing
has already been recommended. The combination
of these two faults, hurrying and not standing still,
produces the obvious result, mistiming ; the bad
iron player’s hands and body are perennially coming
down in front of the club head.

Having so far talked in rather general terms, I must
deal specifically with the most horribly specific of all
golfing diseases, the socketing of iron shots. It
spares neither high nor low, for even champions are
occasionally attacked, and while it lasts it reduces the
victim to a condition of hopeless paralysis. There
is practically no limit to the eccentricities of which
a ball is capable when struck from the extreme heel of
the club. The utter feeling of helplessness too, the
knowledge that nothing can prevent the catastrophe,
must be suffered to be understood. If any one has
never been thus afflicted he had better skip this part
of the chapter. I should be sorry to think that I
had put the bare idea of such a disaster into his head.

The first thing to do when attacked is to try ordinary
remedies. The socketer is nearly always taking his
club back much too fast and also taking his eye off
the ball. If these general hints fail to help him, he
must try something more specific. The socketer may
be taking the club too much in to himself, and then
pushing too much outwards with an excessive use of
the right hand. This is an explanation of the disease
that has often been given. Occasionally it fits the
case, but I believe it in most cases to be misleading.
I think that it is much commoner to take the club too

164 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

far out to the right and then to bring it down too much
to the left with the hands in front, the heel being
thus the first part of the club to reach the ball.
More often than not, therefore, the socketer ought
really to take the club well in to himself, the arms thus
getting plenty of support from the body, and further
to verify once again the turning movement of the
wrists. I believe I have cured one of the most
persistent of socketers that ever lived by making
him, after years of nagging, turn his wrists over
sufficiently in taking back the club.

Socketing may occasionally proceed from too free
a use of the wrist, from making the stroke, in fact, that
which it ought not to be, a pure wrist stroke. I
remember once to have been severely stricken down
when trying some fantastically abrupt lofting shots in
a garden. I got gradually into the habit of picking
up the club very abruptly with nothing but a flick
of the wrist. For a while I accomplished some wonder-
ful feats, but after that a veil may be drawn over my
sufferings. However, in this instance, once the cause
is discovered, the remedy is not very difficult to apply.

When all is said, probably the best cure is one that
may be called a catchword cure, of which I believe
Mr. Charles Hutchings to be the inventor. I have
often quoted it before, elsewhere, but make no apology
for doing so again here. It is, c Take the club right
through with the right hand.’ It is contrary to many
respectable doctrines ; the exact reason of its effective-
ness is difficult to explain. I will not argue : I only
say confidently, ‘ Try it.’

ON FAULTS TN GENERAL 165

The subject of putting has already been so
voluminously treated in an earlier chapter that I
hesitate to say much more about it. What is the
most common form of collapse upon the putting green ?
It is not, as a rule, that the victim is for ever hitting
his ball too much to the right or left of the hole a
disease that would be reasonably amenable to analysis.
No, he usually suffers from a general incapacity to
strike the ball. It is impossible to prescribe at large
in such cases. Patience, courage, a capacity for
blotting out previous tragedies from the mind
these are the chief requisites for recovery.

There is one particular symptom that is often notice-
able in those suffering from this temporary paralysis
upon the green. They have a great difficulty in using
their wrists with sufficient freedom, or indeed in
aggravated cases in using them at all ; the ball is
struck with a stiff, hesitating push of the whole arm.
This is not uncommon with the very best of golfers.
Harry Vardon, when he has one of his off-days on the
green, seems to get his right wrist absolutely locked,
so that it will only move with a stiff uneven little
jerk. That which makes it the more difficult to deal
with is that this is a purely mental, and not a physical
disability. When there is no ball there, or it is of
no moment what happens to the ball, the victim
can move his wrists backwards and forwards as if
they formed part of a well-oiled machine. I know
of no definite remedy. There is nothing for it but to
try with might and main to stand steady and force
the wrists, and the wrists alone, to move, but it is

166 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

uphill work. It has already been suggested that the
position of the feet is of some importance, and that
it is easy for a player to deviate unconsciously from
his normal and comfortable stance. Therefore it is
sometimes profitable to abandon the wrists temporarily
as hopeless, and devote all the attention to reacquiring
a comfortable stance, in the hope that the wrists will
then behave themselves of their own free will.

Apart from this general futility of hitting, there
are at least two big definite faults in putting. The
player may move his body forward with or, worse still,
in front of the club head, or he may take the club
back crooked. As to the former, there have been
very good putters who had a suspicion of this body
movement. The late Mr. F. G. Tait, who was as
good a putter as he was a bold one, had a trace of it
in his style ; as Mr. Low describes it, he brought
the club through “on a piece,” head, shaft, and hands
all going forward together, a manner due partly
perhaps to the fact that he putted with a noticeably
lofted cleek. Mr. Maxwell, too, as a rule a very
excellent putter, seems to let his body go forward a
little, but he has rather a curious style, with a fierce
grip of the club and a wrist so stiff that one may be
allowed, for the benefit of the less talented, to term
it unorthodox. Generally speaking, however, body
movement is strongly to be deprecated, and the man
who is conscious of the tendency should try to restrain
it, though this is easier said than done.

The fault of taking the club back crooked admits
of a subdivision, for it may be taken back either

ON FAULTS IN GENERAL 167

inwards or outwards, to the left of the proper line or
to the right of it. The ‘ pinching ‘ of the club inwards
is often credited with being the commonest fault in
putting, and it is at any rate alarmingly common.
A ball struck in this way constantly flatters only to
deceive ; it appears to be making straight for the
hole, arrives almost at the lip, and then swerves away
to the left-hand side. Mr. Everard tells us that Jamie
Anderson, one of the best and most famous of putters,
never lost sight of this besetting error, and eliminated
it by making allowance for it ; but to make the right
amount of allowance for such an error and no more
is the very deuce and all. I have only heard of one
specific remedy, which was imparted to me by one of
the most deadly wielders of the putting cleek, Mr.
D. F. Ranson. He declared that he had never suffered
since he had taken to turning his right foot rather
inwards. Such a stance does, I think, have the effect
of making the club go out well away from the body ;
the fear is lest it should be too effective, and drive the
player into the opposite extreme.

In the opposite form of error the club is not only
taken out too much to the right ; as a rule it also
describes in its course through the air a peculiar
pattern resembling a pig’s tail. The result is that the
club cuts across the ball, which is pushed feebly out
to the right of the hole. The fault is particularly
characteristic of those who hold the club as in a
vice and putt with too stiff a wrist. A greater
freedom of wrist affords the best hope of reforma-
tion.

168 ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

And now, having gone through the various faults
and remedies, I end with one last solemn exhortation.
As soon as the cure has effected its purpose, put it
temporarily out of mind. A cure unduly persisted
in invariably becomes a fault in itself.

PART II

FROM THE PROFESSIONAL’S
POINT OF VIEW

BY J. SHERLOCK

CHAPTER I
EDUCATIONAL

THERE must be no confusion on one point. This
article is written from the point of view of a professional
golfer, who quite expects that a considerable number
of his brethren will emphatically disagree with many
of the opinions expressed ; some will hardly consider
the opinions worth expressing ; and others still will
never know that any such opinions have ever been
expressed. The various moods that led me to accept
the editor’s kind invitation I cannot explain. That
I was duly warned of my peril I must admit, for,
as a facetious friend of mine reminded me ‘ to be
intelligible is to be found out.’ Besides, I knew quite
well that acceptance would land me in the worst
bunker I was ever in in my life.

Well, what follows is the point of view of a golfer
who has learnt his golf on a mud heap. And such
mud ! To describe it adequately is out of the question,
and besides would serve no purpose, but I warrant
that most of my brethren have little or no idea
what it means to play under like conditions. In
winter you slipped and slithered about as in a swamp,

and it was quite the normal condition to return to the

172 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

club-house, after a round, partially hidden by dabs oi
mud. In summer what little grass there was dis-
appeared, and the black soil baked so hard that if you
dipped for a shot the least bit too much, the shock
made the club shake and vibrate so that you looked
anxiously at the shaft to see if it were broken ; whilst
in the grass season you had a jungle, and at most
times the worms so numerous and busy, that to get
a lie through the green where you had not got to
account for one of their monuments of industrj 7 was
almost impossible.

Such was my practice-ground and home course.
I seldom got a chance to play on any other, except
when I attended one of the few professional tourna-
ments or took a golfing holiday. Yet I claim for the
mud heap that it meant a training that should not
be despised, and had advantages peculiarly its own.

I am fully aware that this opinion clashes with
that of a distinguished writer whose inimitable articles
on the game I look forward to week after week. He
holds that to be a master, your inception of the game
must have been where the sand is under the turf, and
the wind blows the salt of the sea in your face ; but
surely for proof of this he must wait. The inlander
has had so short a time in which to * arrive.’ Why,
even as recently as when the writer himself was
collecting Blues at his University and he is still in
the young forties inland courses could be counted
in tens.

My claim is based on a very simple fact. If you
have to master such conditions you can only do so

EDUCATIONAL 173

by acquiring the habit of accurate hitting, and * you
‘ave to ‘ave the ‘abit or you ‘d lose.’

The ‘ not quite timing ‘em ‘ sort of shot is no good
whatever, for the margin of error is almost at vanish-
ing point : slovenly methods do not pay, forcing
methods mean disaster, clean true hitting is the only
way.

The Open Champion came once and we played an
exhibition match. I did not appreciate what he
meant at the time, but I do now. ‘Jimmy,’ he said,
‘ I know what you feel, but you take it from me, if
you can play golf here you can play anywhere.’

It must not be imagined that I love this dirty kind
of golf, and fail to appreciate the flavour of the sea
and the sand dunes. Far from it ; and perhaps it was
not the critic’s dictum but the artist underneath
creeping through. Anyhow, as an inlander I must
protest against even the artistic point of view when
it asks too much and tends to discouragement. ‘

(a) COACHING

Certainly the most important duty a professional
has to perform for the club that employs him is that
of ‘ giving instruction ‘ to the members, and as this is
so important I ask no pardon for giving an opinion
based on my awn experiences. There are a number
of ways of coaching, and all sorts and conditions of
men essay the task. It is not an uncommon sight to
see the twenty handicap man seriously explaining to
the beginner how to use the driver or the mashie.

174 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

It is still more common to come across the nine
handicap man, generally in the course of a round,
diligently striving to show his twenty handicap partner
how the game should be played. The scratch and
the below scratch player invariably has a mania for
coaching. On the links, in the club-house, even in
the professional’s shop, he is always at it.

Now of this class of instruction I wish to speak
with every respect; it is generously given and
graciously accepted, but the best that can be said
for it is that it is generally harmless but sometimes
helpful. It reminds me very much of the class of
remedies called ‘ patent medicines,’ and with due
reservations it is best left alone.

I feel it my duty to write a word of warning to
the last type I mentioned, * the scratch player,’
especially he who comes to his power early in life.
It is but true to say that he frequently spoils a
good golfer in the making.

Every professional can give you examples of it.
I have personally known many instances. I will
illustrate by an example. I was coaching for a
short time a young player who was making rapid
progress towards the scratch mark, when he had to
go away to keep his ‘Varsity term. There he came
under the influence of a better player, an enthusiast,
but with a very distinctive style. Well, when I next
saw my pupil his game was in a hopeless state : he
was simply torturing himself in attempting to acquire
a method that could never in his case give satisfactory
results.

EDUCATIONAL 176

And in that case is to be found my reason for
objecting to this kind of coaching. I say it quite
frankly, because I have come to my opinion through
much observation. Amateurs are, with very few
exceptions, unduly obsessed with their own methods
of playing the shot, and this I hold to be absolutely
fatal to the art of coaching.

Another form of coaching adopted is through the
printer. An ever-increasing array of books on
4 How to do this ‘ and ‘ How not to do it ‘ seems to
be multiplying furiously a sign, I suppose, that there
is a public to buy. Of the literature on the game
I have nothing to say. If an acknowledged genius
writes a book on ‘ How he plays,’ it is naturally of
interest to all sportsmen, and part and parcel of the
game’s history. I have, however, little to say in
favour of text-books on the game ; at any rate those
which I have seen strike me as being useful in collecting
methods and ideas, and harmless if not taken too
seriously ; but inasmuch as they must obviously give
details of several ways of playing, so surely will they
confuse the learner as to which system to adopt,
creating a bewilderment and indecision that is very
difficult to lose.

Read everything certainly, but view what you
read from a sensible point of view. Do not regard
it as a hypochondriac does the advertisements of
quack medicines. Remember the man who wrote the
book knows nothing whatever about you. You may
be as nimble as a ballet-dancer or as clumsy as a
hippopotamus, you may have the ‘ spring ‘ of a

176 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

‘Varsity sprinter or about as much as the cinder path
itself, it may be mind sang muscle or muscle sans
mind. I am led, therefore, to accept the old tradition
that you cannot learn games from a book.

This drives me to my last ditch, that the only
sensible thing to do if you want advice about this
game is to go to your local practitioner. If you have
no faith in him, go to a specialist ; for I am con-
vinced that he is much more likely to diagnose your
case and be of help than any of the forms of coaching
I have enumerated.

Some of the more captious of my readers may see
in this only an advertisement of the professional
services. Apart from the real answer this view cannot
hold, for I would respectfully inform them of the fact
that more of the professional’s hours of coaching result
from indulging in amateur instruction than from any
other cause.

It must not be taken as my view that I consider all
professionals good or even moderately good teachers.
I do think, however, that the vast majority of us are
well qualified to give first aid, and to cure ordinary
ailments like the local practitioner. We have seen
so much of it. The worth of a man can be roughly
gauged by the fact of his liking or disliking this part
of his work. If he can be drawn on to confess that he
heartily dislikes coaching, then it is clearly time to
ask yourself whether he is the man you need. I am
confident that a man who likes his work is the man who
gives the best results.

Another opinion I hold, contrary to that of so many

EDUCATIONAL 177

golfers, is that the best players are not necessarily the
best teachers. This is an accepted truism in many
forms of art, but in golf you often hear the really
good coach snubbed and his efforts spoken lightly
of, because he cannot play like . . .

In this connection it is important to notice that
nearly all the professionals have developed their game
from boyhood, and discovered how they played it
afterwards. Many of our prominent amateurs have
adopted the converse method, and it is in a true
appreciation of the significance of this fact that the
answer to so many golf queries is to be found. I
am quite aware that a number of my brother profes-
sionals are just as guilty as the amateurs in modelling
their pupil’s game on their own, but I am convinced
that this is not the case with the majority. Let me
illustrate what I write by a picture my fancy calls
into being. Supposing a visitor from Mars should call
one evening on, say, Harry Vardon or J. H. Taylor,
and successfully persuading the maid that his business
was important, was then shown into the study where
the great man was enjoying a quiet smoke after a
hard day on the links. The visitor further persuades
the Champion to give him a lesson then and there : a
club is brought and the visitor told to swing at an
imaginary ball on the carpet; he does so and repro-
duces an exact copy of the Champion when he hits
one of his best. I fancy I hear Vardon murmur,
‘ Ah ! not so bad ; I think that will do for now ; you
seem a trifle quick in shifting your balance forward,
and that kink in your back swing is a danger point ;

178 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

however, come down to the links in the morning ‘ ; or
J. H. T., ‘ Well, well, there ‘s something to be said for
your swing ; a trifle snatchy perhaps, and there ‘s a
decided tendency to let your body fall back on your
heels ; but come round to the course in the morning,
let ‘s see what happens to the ball/ And the visitor
turns up in the morning and hits half a dozen. I
feel sure both these champions would undoubtedly
say, ‘ I cannot teach you any way that will give a
better result than that. Keep as you are.’ Now
take another point of view : supposing the visitor
produces Taylor’s swing to Vardon, and Vardon’s
swing to Taylor. What will happen at the evening
interview ? I think a non-committal attitude would be
adopted by both, with the same request to come round
to the course in the morning ; and when they each
saw the half-dozen balls whizzing down the straight, I
hold both will give exactly the same advice as before.

In that illustration is to be found the secret of all
successful coaching, and if any reader sees in this
only the system of laisser-faire, he is wrong. It is
meant to convey a very different idea.

I have perhaps laboured this point because I
believe it so important, and I may be accused of
pointing out the obvious, but then I am not convinced
that the ordinary man is very good at grasping the
obvious. What I am convinced of is that it is nothing
but this slavish imitation of the big men, who admit
themselves that they owe so much to their physical
equipment, that prevents so many golfers reaching the
game that is in them.

EDUCATIONAL 179

My own practical experience in the art of coaching
has been varied and unusually interesting. At Oxford
the ever-changing generations of ‘ Young England ‘
were always supplying all kinds of material. On
looking up one of my old engagement books, I find
from a haphazard selection in one term I was coaching
an old Oxford man who was a frontiersman in Western
America the year I was born tall, thin, with hardly
an ounce of superfluous flesh, keen as a razor, and
with decision in every movement. His weight was a
problem, or rather the want of it, for no captain of
boats would have considered him for anything else
but bow. Well, I taught him a full swing, noticeably
slow, and before I left he was playing comfortably
down to eight, but expecting Anno Domini to be
putting up his handicap soon. I shall always remember
the games I played with him, because if he did get
annoyed now and again, he always swore in a language
picked up from the Indians of Mexico.

Another of my pupils was a local celebrity whose
fifth waistcoat button, counting from the top, success-
fully spoilt a view he once had of a rather clumsy pair
of feet. All the agility he possessed was in his brain.
I always suspected the doctor had a hand in his
taking up golf. I coaxed him into a style more
resembling the swinging pendulum of a clock : it
was so clearly his line of least resistance, and I
hammered it well in. Of course his friends did their
best to explain how wrong it all was, but he took little
notice and stuck to it, and very soon had his revenge
by rattling their half-crowns in his pocket. He was

180 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

a perfect trap to the unwary. His handicap was
nine, and when most people saw his swing they
jumped at the idea of taking him on, but it was
mostly he that did the taking. He was invariably
on the course with any club, short in length naturally,
but he knew his own limitations, and never took any
notice of what his opponent was doing.

A third from the list was a Rugby trials man, some-
what short in stature but finely knit. He also was
encouraged to develop a short backward swing, a half-
swing most people would call it ; his swing was quite
conspicuous in those days. His first handicap allotted
him at Oxford was twenty, but before his time was up
he played first for Oxford against Cambridge, and
whenever the discussion arises among old ‘Varsity
golfers as to who was the finest player that ever
played top, his name invariably comes up for
consideration.

Those three were all at work during the same term,
and I mention them because of the fact that all three
were taught to develop entirely different methods.
Of my own system of coaching I am inclined to say
little. Each pupil I look upon as a problem, and
diagnose his case to the best of my ability. I might
say that I have found it best to start with the short
shots first the mashie and work upwards. It makes
for a better value of control, and I keep away from the
course until ready to play a round, for I have found
innate in most beginners a thorough dislike for spoiling
turf. If he jags the turf with his first effort, he will
top the next half-dozen for certain. Off the course

EDUCATIONAL 181

you can instil in him the real value of turf ; and I
am always striving to effect that the club head must
be travelling on the line of flight before it reaches the
ball and after the ball has gone. All other matters
depend on the man.

As a final summing-up of what I consider the hall-
mark of good coaching let me suggest the following
imaginary case. Should I ever be honoured by a
visitor from Mars selecting me for his coach he
knowing nothing whatever about this noble game,
but by Nature splendidly equipped with all the
qualities necessary for a champion I feel that when
he had entered for the amateur championship, and
had shocked the great men and caused the inevitable
discussion as to where he came from, no one would
be likely to say ‘ that man was taught by Sherlock.’
If I am wrong, I should feel that I had ignominiously
failed in my trust.

There is one point of view I wish to mention, and at
once I confess my own mental attitude towards it
gives me no satisfaction. The truth is I feel in a
state of chaos, caused by an innate respect for author-
ity warring against certain ideas accumulated from
observation and experience, possibly both inadequate
and wrong. The question that puzzles me is : What
are the so-called essentials of the golf swing and what
are not ? Would that some scientifically trained
mind would come along, and by comparison and
analysis adjust the theory to fit the facts and settle
the confusion. There must be many besides myself
who would be grateful.

182 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

No advice, in my judgment, is calculated to do more
harm than to insist that certain points in a swing are
essential if they are not. Numbers of people who
claim to have thought about the game and try to
prove it by overmuch talk, together with the small
but growing army of authors, are all guilty. When
they do definitely state what are these essentials,
they deliver themselves into the hands of the enemy.
They seem to hold as a rooted axiom that there must
be some points of the swing that all successful golfers
have in common.

What seems to me to have happened in the past is
that the theory of the ‘ correct swing ‘ was formulated
by such writers as the author of the Art of Golf, a
truly great book that no golfer can afford to leave
unread, and that it has held the field more or less
ever since. The author apparently had a shock on
the appearance of the Badminton, which he frankly
admits in the preface to his second edition, and he
attempts an explanation, backing himself to defend
‘ these most pregnant and important theses ‘ :

(1) There are many points of style which are

essential to effective play.

(2) There is practical unanimity among golfers on

recognising the effect of the presence or
absence of most of these.

The third doesn’t affect my point for the present,
so I don’t quote it. Now how far in the light of
modern golfers would Sir W. G. Simpson defend these
theses to-day ? Were they ever sound ? I mentioned

EDUCATIONAL 183

the Badminton, and I advise those who have never
read it to do so. Two important plates in it show
‘ the top of the swing as it should be ‘ and ‘ end of
the swing as it should not be ‘ ; another plate gives
the St. Andrews swing. These two golfers, for it is
quite well known whom they represent, have strangely
different methods. The result we know they shared
both hitting the ball very far and very straight.

In 1898 there came that fine book Golf and Golfers^
and it is significant of the progress of the game that
such a book should have been issued. It contains
a splendid collection of golf swings, embracing practi-
cally all the best exponents of the game of that day,
too many of whom, alas, have dropped out. Although
too much reliance must not be placed on photography,
for it often lies, and a golfer, even one of the big men,
conscious of being photographed, produces a very
different picture from that when he is not conscious,
yet for the purpose of observing what the players
have in common the photos are sound, with perhaps
the exception of Mr. H. G. B. Ellis’s two examples.
I cannot bring myself to take them seriously, as they
savour too much of an uncontrollable fit of joking,
sadly inopportune. 1 If there is one lesson to be
learnt from this picture gallery, it is that there
are dozens of successful ways of producing far and
straight driving many have more than one point in
common, but no one point is common to all.

The frontispiece to the book is a ‘ finish of the

1 I can assure Sherlock that they are very serious pictures and
true portraits of a very singular player. H. G. H.

184 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

drive ‘ by the late Lieutenant Tait, a giant even
amongst giants. Carefully examine this side by side
with his other photograph on page 144. The theorists
have always appeared to me a little too fond of explain-
ing away a fact that they couldn’t fit in by avowing
that the Champion (and it was generally a champion
that gave most trouble) was so clearly a genius and
thus a law unto himself. Lieutenant Tait certainly
caused much anxiety with his right-hand grip and
consequent wrist action.

I well remember the flutter and excitement caused
by Taylor when he won at St. Andrews. There was
very little ‘ correct ‘ in his methods, and the clubs
he used were mere freaks. Then Vardon came and
wrested the championship away from Taylor in the
famous play-off after the tie at Muirfield in 1896.
What the old school must have thought about these
two youngsters from over the border can only be
guessed. Certainly between them they disregarded
most of the points that were accepted as the right
way of playing the game. Every year since, the list
of those who are a law unto themselves has been added
to. Nowadays, the golfer who plays with a style all
his own escapes notice even at St. Andrews. If you
doubt this, think for a moment what would have
happened if Mr. de Montmorency had gone twenty
years ago and annexed the Jubilee vase, as he did
last year, with his egregious but horribly effective
methods. I can imagine the feelings of the Royal and
Ancient being so outraged that a special train would
have been chartered their well-known sense of

EDUCATIONAL 185

courtesy would have demanded that and he would
promptly have been ordered south of the Tweed.

Before me as I write, having arrived at a most
opportune time, is an advertisement of yet another
golf text-book. It contains a photograph giving a
part of the swing with a driver, and printed with it,
drawing attention to a certain movement, is the dictum
4 this is essential to the true swing/ The first thing
that struck me was that at any rate it is not part of
my swing, and, what is more to the point, neither does
it form part of the swing of the editor of this book
to go no further. My own case doesn’t count, but the
editor is the acknowledged W. G. of the game, and
cannot be passed over lightly.

Another book that has but recently seen the light
of day is expected to be of use to the man who takes
the game up late in life. To my mind it is unfortunate
that the illustrations should be all of a golfer whose
freedom of movement, ease and agility it is hard to
match from amongst the best of the younger school.
Exuberance is marked in nearly every photograph.
Is it wise for many people, especially those of middle
age, to try and emulate such a method ?

An enlightening experiment, if it were possible,
would be to parade the first twenty men, starting at
any club in the British Isles, and carefully note how
they are equipped to play games. Height, length of
limb, power of wrists, arms, hands, etc., balance,
quickness of movement, etc. etc. etc. Having done
this, face the question : Is it likely to be the soundest
advice that these men should be coached, drilled, or

186 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

a better word still is c bent,’ to adopt one stereotyped
form of swing ? Is it not more feasible to bend the
game within limits to fit the man ? If there is some-
thing to be said for this idea, the truth will probably
be found in a scientific combination of both, and here,
‘ you writer of golf books, is a subject made to your
hand.’ But in the meantime don’t frighten good
men or shake the confidence of true men with all this
talk about essentials.

CHAPTER II
MY OWN GAME

THE editor expressed a desire that I should write
something about my own game the way I play the
different shots, and my reason for so doing, that is
if I can discover any special reason. It will be
gathered, I trust, from what I have previously written,
that I do not mean this for a guide as to how others
should play ; I only hope it may contain new ideas
for some, and for others encouragement to go on with
methods already formed.

The first thing that strikes me as worthy of attention,
and as playing a very important part in determining
how I should play the game, is my build and weight.
I stand 5 feet 8| inches and weigh 9 stone 10 Ibs.
Further, I must confess that I have not been gifted
with a large supply of muscle or strength. If the
game demanded the application of sheer strength
I should be but a sorry muddler, but let it be at once
understood that it does not.

I have often been amused by reading paragraphs
in which I am described as being ‘ well set up/ ‘ of
firm and strong build.’ Only a week or two ago a
golfing paper informed me that ‘ a big and powerful

187

188 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

pair of wrists * played an important part in the firm
manner in which I played my iron shots.

If the truth must be told, my wrists and forearm
seem to me to have stopped growing since I was ten
years of age, for they are far from being big and
powerful. My little daughter, who can stretch little
more than an octave on the piano, can with the same
ease encompass my wrist.

Do not imagine for a moment that this lack of
strength worries me. I draw attention to it because
it necessarily decided the lines on which my game has
developed. Big strong men have much to be thankful
for, but they have also, in consequence of this strength,
much to watch and guard against.

The rest of my anatomy is built in proportion.
Perhaps I ought to mention a pair of feet which serve
me well at all times, and which are neither too heavy
nor too big.

These details are worth mentioning if only to
encourage those players who are built on similar lines ;
they all too frequently get it into their heads that
they can never succeed because they have no strength
or wrists to speak of. What I would suggest is that
they must direct their attention, as I do, to different
methods from those of the strong men.

The Grip. I hold my club with both hands close
together, but not overlapping. The left hand grips
firmly with the three fingers, the fork of the first
finger and thumb is on the top of, and pointing
straight down, the shaft, the thumb and first finger
lap round the club and find a place out of the way,

I..!

DRIVING: SHOWING GRIP AND STANCE

[To face p. 189

MY OWN GAME 189

since they are not called upon to take an active
part in making the stroke. The right hand grips much
in the same way as the left with the three fingers, but
more loosely, and is held more under the club, so that
the fork of the thumb and first finger is not on the
top but to the side of the club, about midway between
a point that would mark the centre of the top and a
point that would mark the centre of the side. I wish
the exact position of the right hand to be clearly
understood, because of the subsequent movement
the wrists and arms have to perform. My grip will
be recognised as differing only in this detail from the
old-fashioned orthodox method commonly known as
the ‘ V ‘ grip, and the only mannerism and I use
the word because I feel the action has no particular
value, but nevertheless should be noted is that at
the top of the swing the grip of the right hand slackens,
so that the shaft falls into the fork between the thumb
and finger, but directly the backward swing commences
the fingers fasten on again and the club is held per-
fectly rigid. And let it be remembered, this mannerism
is quite common amongst the ‘ V ‘ grippers.

The grip of the right hand must by no means be
confused with what is known as the ‘ Palm ‘ grip,
that is, holding the club in the palm of the hand so
that the back of the hand falls underneath the shaft.
Many fine players have adopted this grip and un-
doubtedly drive far and straight, but I do not like
it : it looks clumsy, and I venture to say it means
trouble unless you are careful. And for this reason.
If you have a full swing, there is a necessary move-

190 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

ment of the arms from the elbow joint, often incorrectly
called the wrist action (of which more anon), and by
gripping underneath with the right hand you start by
cramping that action, and in consequence something
has to happen during the downward swing in order
to readjust matters. You can easily see what I mean
by gripping a club and noticing the different positions
of the right and left wrists.

My opinion of the overlapping grip is that its
effectiveness depends entirely on the strength of
fingers and forearm. It would be useless for players
to attempt it who have no more power in their wrists
and fingers than I have. It is a very valuable grip
for those people who have a powerful right hand that
is always wanting to do more than its proper share of
the work ; then the overlapping will be found to help
tremendously, because it effects the getting rid of
part of the right hand, and therefore strikes a better
balance between the two. There is no need to think,
however, that the overlapping grip has any particular
value over any other grip.

The Stance. When one has gripped the club com-
fortably, the next point to settle is how to stand.
My ordinary stance for a straight shot is slightly
open : that means that if I drew a line from the toe
of my right foot, I should find the toe of my left foot
about a couple of inches inside that line ; and if you
drew another line from the ball towards me, it would
miss my left heel by about three inches. I stand
upright, but there is a distinct crouch about the
shoulders, though not much of a bend in the back.

MY OWN GAME 191

This means the legs are not very wide apart for a
man of my height. My weight is kept well back on
my heels, and I stand just as far away from the ball
as will allow of this. This question of weight is a
most important one. Guard against your weight
being on your toes : this means that you are too far
away from the ball, and you are courting trouble for
certain. It is a very good plan when you are settled
to see if you can lift your toes off the ground without
falling forward ; if you cannot, creep nearer the ball
until you can. Of course this suggestion is only
relating to the weight, it must not be interpreted as
a defence for standing close to the ball far from it,
for I am a great believer in standing as far away as
possible, always of course considering the shape of
one’s swing and the length of club.

One has always to bear in mind that the stance must
be altered according to the shot required. For
instance, if you have a hanging lie through the green
or if you want to hold a ball up into a wind, then you
naturally attack the ball from a different position.

(a) THE SWING

Imagine that you have gripped the club comfortably,
taken up your stance and feel quite satisfied, and that
the ball is teed ready for you to drive. Now comes
the serious business of swinging or hitting the ball
as straight and as far as possible. And this is how
I attempt to do it.

My first movement causes my hands and arms to

192 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

pick the club head off the ground at once, inwards,
in a direction towards my right leg but well outside
it. Note that there is no sign of the club head dragging
along the turf. Almost simultaneously my left knee
bends inwards, the left heel leaves the ground, and the
balance of the body presses the ball of the left foot into
the ground. As the club is taken back and up, the
right elbow keeps low and slides round the body.

There is but the slightest sign of the hands and
wrists turning until the club has gone quite halfway
on its journey upwards, but from that point you can
plainly see the hands and wrists turn until they fall
directly underneath the shaft as the club lies
horizontal above the shoulders, with the nose of the
head pointing straight to the ground. Meanwhile,
the left shoulder has come round, but the body has
not swayed backwards. I can still see the ball with
both eyes (and if you cannot it is a sure sign that the
body has moved), and the balance of weight is still
very much as when I started, only it is the inside of
the left foot and not the heel that now receives the
pressure.

When the club has reached the limit of the upward
swing I can feel instinctively where the head of the
club is. There is no ‘ Soppiness ‘ of the wrists allowing
the club to fall at the top. This is prevented by the
grip of the left hand. I have not taken back the
club hurriedly, and consequently there is no trouble
about where it must stop. The downward swing is
begun by the hands, and the right shoulder is made
to follow. The wrists and hands do their turning much

DRIVING: TOP OF SWING

[To face p. 192

/* ::*:!: ‘*’:

/’: ; :, : . ‘

:^’

DRIVING : FINISH OF S^ I N< ;

\Tn are p. 193

MY OWN GAME 193

nearer the ball than in the upward swing. Another
difference I am conscious of in the two halves of the
swing is, that the head of the club is travelling on the
line of flight an inch or two before it reaches the ball.
This I attribute to the fact that I always try and
hit away from myself. Naturally the club is travelling
very much faster, for my intention is not to stop at
that little white ball but to go clean through it, and
the impetus gained should carry my arms well out,
bring my right shoulder round, and drag my right foot
from its moorings. My head and body will be after
all this at least a foot nearer the hole. So much for
the attempt.

It will be easily recognised that there are several
points in this swing that differ from the general rules
of instruction. My footwork starts very soon, there
is no waiting until the upward swing drags the left
knee round and the left heel off the ground. I hold
it is wrong for this movement to begin the swing, it
must be made to follow the lead of the hands and arms,
but how soon will depend on the nimbleness or clumsi-
ness of the player.

My weight is never transferred from the left to the
right leg. Rather, as far as one can tell, it remains
the same all through the swing, or at any rate until
the ball has been struck, when naturally the following
through carries the weight on to the left leg.

I can feel that the downward swing is begun by the
hands, and the right shoulder begins coming round
soon afterwards. This point should be noticed by
all who suffer from slicing. There is no more common

194 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

fault than to start the downward swing with the
shoulders, especially amongst moderately good players
who have acquired quite a decent swing. It means
that the ball will swerve away to the right at the
end of the flight. Another very important point
I have alluded to is what I have called hitting
away from you. This is not easy to explain on paper,
although simple enough on a golf-course. However,
here is a test whereby any one may prove the point
himself. The next time you take a divot with any
club, carefully examine the scalp mark and see which
way it is pointing. If it is pointing to the left of the
line to the hole, you have undoubtedly hit towards
yourself ; if it is pointing the opposite side of the
line, you have struck away.

Now, if you keep well in your mind the idea of
hitting away, you will be pretty certain to avoid the
hitting towards ; and it is this which is so important
in driving. There is no point upon which one should
more strongly insist.

I am not afraid that many will succeed in actually
hitting past the ball, because of the stance and the
position of the ball, but the effort to do so will
invariably result in the ball taking a straight flight.

If this idea were more generally understood and
acted upon, chronic slicing would be much less common
than it is.

It will be noticed that I differ from a number of the
experts in the turning of my hands and wrists in taking
the club back. The movement comes very much later,
and at no time can it be said that the face of the club

MY OWN GAME 195

* is almost looking up to heaven/ as Mr. Darwin
thinks it should. I believe he will find that very few
of the ‘ V ‘ grippers turn the club out so much as that.
I certainly condemn it as unnecessary, and I should
correct it in a pupil, since it is likely to exaggerate the
wrist action and to cause 4 foundering ‘ or slicing,
owing to the extra effort needed to get the club head
back square. However, I intend to say more about
the wrist action later.

The last point to notice in my swing is that it cannot
be said that both halves are alike. Now, it is a very
serious fallacy in my opinion to hold, that c once get
the backward swing correct, the downward swing will
follow automatically.’ Would that it did. Every
club then would soon be boasting of its plus players,
and scratch men would be too common to worry about.
Coaching as a means of livelihood would be a very
hard lot, but there would be this consolation, that it
would be comparatively easy. No, this idea cannot
be allowed to stand for a moment my own experience
shows that it is in the downward swing that the faults
creep in. There are plenty of players I know who
take the club back correctly in every detail, but they
can never be trusted to hit the ball straight. Perhaps
it is because they are conscious of nearing the work
in hand. I unhesitatingly say that most of the faults
that I am called upon to correct, in coaching old
players who are off their game, are faults in the
downward swing.

I feel it is important that golfers should be taught
to recognise that bringing the club back correctly is

196 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

just as difficult, if not more so, than taking the club
up correctly. And when all these important points
have been carefully noted and are understood, it must
be clear in your mind exactly what it is you are trying
to effect by the swing. This is what I think should
be aimed at and here I include every description of
swings, ‘quarter-swings,’ ‘ half -swings,’ ‘full swings’
and ‘ hits ‘ viz. to bring back the club head perfectly
square to the ball and to let it travel on the exact
line of flight you wish the ball to take, at least two
inches before the ball is reached and as long as you
can make it after the ball has been struck. To do
this in the backward swing or (more important still)
in the downward swing, never let the club head or
any part of it be outside the ball. If this is not clear
without a diagram, draw the line of flight back from
the ball for some three feet. If your club head at
any moment during the downward swing gets outside
that line, it will require a miracle to make the ball
fly straight.

My last piece of advice about driving is this. Form
an opinion as early as possible, but not hastily, as to
what is to be your style, and then stick to it. Do
not be led to abandon it by the first man who beats
you, and start practising other methods. Remember
that however long a driver you may be, you will be
sure to meet some one who can get a bit further.
Learn what is your maximum length and be satisfied ;
take no notice of tipsters.

The number of golfers who are continually trying
tips to enable them to drive further than Nature

tCC c

c l V

IRON SHOT: STANCE AND GRIP

[To face p. 197

MY OWN GAME 197

intended them to, is legion. The result is that they
never know how they want to hit the ball, and can
never be relied on to hit the ball when wanted.

Steadiness is after all the best kind of brilliancy.

About playing through the green with wooden
clubs there is no need to say much. If the lie is good
it is just driving over again. Of course, if there is a
downhill lie or an uphill lie the stance must be altered
to suit, but there is no difference of opinion as to
these points, and enough instruction has been written
already upon them. It would be waste of space for
me to repeat it.

I must confess to a distinct liking for playing my
spoon. It has a fairly long shallow face and a stiff
shaft only some two inches shorter than that of my
brassie. I swing for a full shot with this club in just
the same way as I do with a driver. I frequently
use it for short shots checking the backward swing
and much prefer it to a cleek.

(6) IRON CLUBS

The cleek I play with a full swing, only because I
cannot get the distance required without. With
the rest of the iron clubs I find my grip and stance
slightly altered. I stand with the ball much nearer
my right foot, and the stance is decidedly more open.
In the grip the right hand is more over the shaft and
the thumb and first finger are brought into active
service ; as the distance to cover becomes shorter,
so the backward swing automatically shortens.

198 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

In playing iron shots I find it a great help almost to
pause at the top of the swing, as Braid advocates.
This seems to ensure more accurate hitting. With
regard to the ‘ push-shot,’ I must confess I never could
see much difference between that and the ordinary
firmly hit iron shot.

I always carry a special straight-faced iron (more
upright in lie than any ordinary iron), and use it for
low shots against a strong wind. I aim to pinch the
ball into the turf more decidedly, and rely on the
absence of loft on the club to keep the ball low. The
only important points to insist on in iron shots are the
control of the backward swing, and the keeping of
the club head on the line of flight as long as possible
after the ball has gone. Remember that the full
shot with the shorter irons is limited to what is called
the l half -swing ‘ in driving. Anything fuller than
this is quite unnecessary and seldom successful.

In mashie play the principle of the shortened
backward swing is carried still further, since it becomes
automatically shorter as the distance is shorter. There
is the same grip and the same method of taking the
club back, only the stance becomes more open. And
the more open stance has the effect of keeping the
club head moving straight back from the ball longer
than in the other shots. Success with the mashie is
just a question of accurately hitting the ball and
judging the distance. Practice and experience will
teach you how the ball runs, that is to say, if you can
remember how the different conditions of weather
affect the course.

IRON SHOT : TOP OF SWING

[To face p. 198

IRON SHOT: FINISH OF SWING

[To face p. 199

MY OWN GAME 199

I am a great believer in taking a small piece of turf
after the ball, it has a steadying effect on the shot.
Do not, however, stab in behind the ball so that a
huge chunk of turf comes out ; that is anything but
satisfactory, even if the ball reaches the green. A
very short period of instruction will be needed to
teach you exactly how you ought to strike the ball,
and the rest is simply acquiring a regular habit of
putting it into practice.

I feel that I ought here to state concisely and as
clearly as I can my opinion about wrist action. No
part of the golf stroke seems to me to be less under-
stood or to cause so much confusion ; no doubt much
of this confusion results from the name itself. I
feel that if the instructors of the game would always
explain that the action they write about starts at the
elbow joint, much of the misunderstanding would be
cleared away. What I mean by c wrist action ‘ is
just the turning over of the wrist, forearm and hand,
either outwards or inwards.

No independent action of the wrist other than
this, with any club except the putter, is in my opinion
necessary or admissible.

I consider the common theory that the wrists
should be used independently in the mashie shot to
be quite erroneous ; the action is totally unnecessary,
and therefore likely to produce mistiming. I am
fully aware that this idea clashes with that held

200 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

by some of the greatest exponents of the game,
but I am, nevertheless, prepared to defend my
opinion.

First I will take this ‘ wrist-shot ‘ as played with
the mashie. The advocates instruct that the ‘ club
should be taken back rather upright with the wrists.’
Now what I want to know is, whether this action of
the wrists is to be repeated exactly in the same place
in the downward swing. If so, then reflect for a
moment what that means. Remember that the
arms, hands, and wrists are obliged to go through a
slight turning movement on their way to the ball,
whatever theory is held.

Now in this theory under discussion the wrists are
to do a particular work on their own account for
something like a second or even less immediately
before the ball is struck.

If this is not so, then the only other explanation
is that the particular work of the wrists is never
introduced into the downward swing at all.

One important point, I think, in discussing the
question is always lost sight of the enormous
difference between the wrists, say, of Vardon, Taylor,
and Braid and the majority of the rest of us. The
size and strength of their wrists would compare very
favourably with the size of our forearms. When they
think they are allowing their wrists a little play,
then the rigidity is probably as great as when we
deliberately hold our wrists taut. Think what this
independent wrist action means to players with
feeble wrists. I have known many of the latter

MASHIE SHOT: STANCE AND GRtP

[To face p. 201

MY OWN GAME 201

assiduously practise the * mashie wrist-shot/ but I
have never known one really succeed in it.

I do not say that this way of playing the shot
cannot be made effective, but what I do say is, that
it is a very much more difficult way of playing than
is necessary, and, indeed, the simpler way is difficult
enough. To sum up, I maintain the theory that the
short mashie shot should be played with the wrists
independent of the forearm ought to be denounced as
a mistake. Again, as regards ‘ wrist action ‘ by that
I mean the action from the elbow joint (i.e. the
turning over of the forearms, wrists, and hands acting
together) the school which advocates that this turn-
ing movement should deliberately begin immediately
the club leaves the ball in the backward swing, have
never explained why it should do so, nor have they
pointed out any advantage to be gained by it. Every
one admits that a certain turning of the wrists is
inevitable, but the important point to settle is, how
much is necessary and how much is superfluous, and
when the turning should start.

Now the people who in driving or in mashie play
start the movement immediately are faced with this
danger. If, as I presume they expect, the movement
repeats itself in the downward swing, what are the
chances that this turning will bring the club head
back square exactly at the moment when the club
head comes in contact with the ball ? Remember
what this movement is doing all the time to the head
of the club. Further, if you begin turning at once,
I think you run a very great danger of continuing

202 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

much too long, and this all tends towards exaggerating
the difficulties of getting the club head square to the
ball at the moment of impact. Any exaggeration
is a risk to be avoided, and unless the advocates of
this system can claim for it any special advantages
which are not obvious to me, I shall pin my faith to
the old saying that the easiest way to play a shot is
always the best. To me the simpler way is to get this
turning movement finished before the face of the club
strikes the ball, and to do as little turning as possible.

One thing is certain, namely, that with many golfers
this turning movement is the direct cause of constant
slicing, and of every other form of mistake which results
from the face of the club not being square to the ball
at the time of impact.

Years ago, before I thought much for myself, I
remember being puzzled by a player, whose skill I
much respected, explaining to me that he gained the
extra distance off the tee by the flick of his wrists.
I am inclined to believe now that he was mistaken,
and simply deceived himself. Mr. Darwin, far-sighted
critic as he undoubtedly is, appears to entertain quite
wrong opinions about this ‘ wrist ‘ question. I do not
think his idea of the right wrist action in the running-
up shot at all sound. I am quite aware that in his
theory he follows the lead of the east of Scotland
school, but I never could see much in the particular
methods they advocate ; in fact, all the talk about
turning over the right wrist to make the ball run up-
hill is to me nothing but sheer nonsense. Briefly,
what they do is this. They take a lofted iron club and

MASHIE SHOT : TOP OF SWING

[To face p. 20

MASHIE SHOT: FINISH OF SWING

MY OWN GAME 203

then stand so much in front of the ball that most of
the loft is made valueless, and the striking of the ball
has varying results. Sometimes it scuttles along,
thus showing plainly that it has been smothered.
At other times it pitches and runs with a drag in the
same way as an ordinary straightforward shot would.
Now, if they deliberately aim at hitting the ball whilst
the head of the club is actually turning over, then
all I can say is that that kind of shot in no way appeals
to me. How can they hope to gauge the exact amount
of turning to be done at the exact moment the club
hits the ball ? Their calculations must necessarily
often be inaccurate, because the time taken over the
stroke is so short, and the ball does not tend to hang to
the club, owing to its great resiliency.

I have seen a photograph of a well-known profes-
sional ‘ at the finish of the shot ‘ with his right wrist
turned over so much that the nose of the iron looks
as if it is going to dig into the ground. Now why
is this the * correct way to finish ‘ ?

It seems to me that this theory is only part of a
large conspiracy to make out that every shot in this
game is more difficult than it really is. The art of golf
is difficult enough in all conscience, and for goodness
sake let us have done with all these decorations and frills.

I can claim to be pretty familiar with ‘ running-up
shots.’ At Stoke you can get a good many of them.
I play them with an ordinary iron ; my wrists and
hands turn much as with ordinary shots, and I never
attempt to make a special turning movement with my
right wrist.

204 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

In estimating the amount of force with which to
strike the ball, the thing to acquire is what billiard
players call ‘ touch/ and always to guard against
cutting the ball ; in other words, one must hit the ball
accurately. The rest is a mere question of ability to
judge distance and the condition of the ground.

If Mr. Darwin insists that this turning of the right
wrist is important in the stroke, I will undertake to
demonstrate when he next visits Stoke that in my way
of playing it is quite superfluous, and he shall be left
to decide which way is the simpler and more effective.

As to playing out of bunkers or hazards, I shall
say little. All necessary and useful advice has been
written over and over again. Bunker shots are special
shots, and the more a golfer knows about them the
better is he equipped to save strokes. Treat every
bunker with respect, but fear none.

There is a special group of strokes in this game
to which every professional pays a good deal of
attention, but few of them are often successful in
execution. Here I refer to the intentional slice and
the intentional pull, or, as Vardon called them, ‘ the
master-strokes.’ Of course I do not mean (nor does
Vardon) the ordinary sliced or pulled shot on to a
green, which is done by a slight alteration in the
stance, but the deliberate attempt to circumvent
some formidable hazard and reach a green that is, say,
round the corner.

I must confess that the only man I have ever seen
bring off this shot successfully is Vardon himself.
Twice at least I have seen him judge to perfection the

MY OWN GAME 205

correct amount of pull and slice, and in each case he
saved a stroke. At the time I felt he was quite right
in calling it a ‘ master-stroke/

The method and the principle of the shot are, I
should say, generally understood. It will be remem-
bered what has been
said about drawing x x B

the line of flight back ^O^~ > A

from the ball for S ‘ ~ – - – _ p

about three feet. In J gg.^^ ^^ Qf ^ Qf ^

the Case Of these S…S. Dotted line showing approximate move-
ment of club head before and after

Special Shots the club striking ball for the slice.

, j – ,. , P. ..P. Dotted line showing approximate move-

head for a Slice must me nt of club head before and after

be taken back OUt- striking ball for the pull.

side that line, and it must finish, immediately after
the ball is reached, inside that line. For the pull the
club head must be taken back well inside the line,
and when it reaches the ball it must be travelling on
its way outside it.

The stance is altered and the ball so placed as to
produce the required result. There are plenty of
photographs in the big books that give the exact
positions, and I believe the instruction is quite sound.
The difficulty occurs in making the shot. There is
always the feeling, ‘ is it worth the risk ? ‘ and that
is the reason why so few bring it off. You feel quite
confident you can get a five, but to get a four you have
to chance taking a six, and I must confess that I
should never take the risk unless things were in a very
desperate condition. For instance, if I stood dormy
one down I should attempt it, but if I stood all square

206 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

and one to go I should certainly not take the risk,
but I should feel quite satisfied if my opponent did.
It may be gathered from this that I hold the shot
to be far too difficult to admit of being attempted in
any but ‘ now or never ‘ conditions.

(d) PUTTING

Putting, writes Vardon, is a ‘ game within a game,’
and he might have added that the game within is
greater than the game without. He also says that
you cannot teach a man to putt, which I hold to be
perfectly true. What you can do is to tell the man
plainly why it is he cannot putt, and that is very
seldom done. There is one point I might mention at
the start, and that is, that a large number of golfers
are too greedy in their expectations. Nowadays,
when many of the greens are some forty yards square,
for a player to grumble because he often takes three
putts is, on the face of it, rather stupid.

After what Vardon has written, I am not going to
be guilty of suggesting anything that might be con-
sidered as an attempt to teach, but I will content
myself with pointing out certain things which are
worth considering. First, I will briefly review what
others have written, and I will start with the opinions
of my friend Vardon.

I cannot resist the temptation of suggesting that,
when he next writes a chapter on this particular
department of the game, he should not entitle it
4 Simple Putting.’ His doing so suggests the story

MY OWN GAME 207

about one of the other big men who, on a certain
occasion, was suffering from a severe attack of
socketing his mashie shots ; at the end of the round
a certain nobleman came up and cheerfully suggested

that what he should do was to read ‘ on how to

play the mashie. ‘ Vardon seems to have a fixed idea
that there is a method allotted to each of us by Nature.
When we adopt it, unconsciously or not, we putt well,
and when we deviate from it, if ever so little, we putt
badly : that is his secret of putting.

Now I do not think that is very sound. One cannot
say that it is wrong, because it is so indefinite, but
I think the idea is erroneous, inasmuch as it insists
on the vital importance of the stance. I believe a
really good putter Willie Park, for instance, and
there is none better could putt with his feet in any
position, so long as you did not twist his body until
he could not get a good sight of the line, or interfere
with the freedom of his arms. Another, and a very
fine putter be it noted, informs us that the secret
of putting is to strike the ball as much on the bottom
as possible, in order to impart drag. He tells us not
to follow through, and to try and coax the ball into
the hole.

Another authority tells us the real way to putt is
to strike the ball on the top to give it running spin,
and we are to be sure and follow through.

Others again advocate hitting the ball off the nose
of the putter ; some swear the heel is the best ; and
some actually suggest the centre of the putter as the
correct place. There are then plenty of methods to

208 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

try, and plenty of good putters who have adopted
one or other of them.

The value of undercutting the ball or of imparting
top spin to it depends, in my opinion, entirely on the
condition of the green and the texture of the grass.

One idea I do think wrong, and that is for the man
who drags his putt to aim at coaxing the ball into the
hole ; his only chance is to putt boldly for the back of
the hole. It is the man who putts with top spin who
should be afraid of getting past.

My ordinary way of putting is to hit the ball cleanly
and to follow through. I always take a line as close
to the ball as possible, and I putt almost entirely
with the right hand. My stance is formed with the
ball exactly opposite my left heel, and I stand fairly
upright. If the green is very fast and slippery I take
a putting-cleek. This helps to check the ball, and it
also gives one a chance of hitting firmly without fear
of running past the hole.

For the long putts, which you wish to get dead,
there is no help any one can give. The only advice
is that you must practise. Always try to acquire the
habit of quickly observing the condition of the green,
and then nothing but practice will teach you the
‘ touch ‘ that is necessary for you to get the ball
dead. There is no secret way of hitting the ball ; some
days you will do it, and some days you will not ; but
the more you practise, the more familiar with the
stroke you will become, and the more often will you
discover the correct strength.

And for the short putts. Pay attention to what is

PUTTING : STANCE AND GRIP

[To face p. 208

IM-ITIN; : IIOUNC; orr

[To face p. 209

MY OWN GAME 209

described as a good style that is to say, note carefully
all the advice about ‘ keeping the body still/ * taking
the line/ ‘ see that the putter is taken back smoothly
and that it is brought back truly on the line to the
hole ‘ for it is obvious that a good style is better
than a bad one. This is all that can be insisted upon ;
after that it is simply a question of whether you are
able to hit the ball as you intend. There are plenty
of people who think that a good style means success
that is pure nonsense.

It is no good disguising the fact that there are
hundreds, nay, thousands, of people who know all
about style and its value, but who cannot hole a
putt of four feet at a critical moment to save their
lives. What happens is that their style goes all to
pieces. I have very little patience with the elaborate
system of pretence one meets on the putting-green :
it would be far better to tell the truth. You watch
the four-foot putt stop on the lip of the hole, and
then you have to listen to an exclamation that it is
4 hard luck/ that something or other stopped it on
its way, and many other excuses when all the time
you could see quite plainly that the ball was not hit
hard enough. Or, again, when the eight to ten foot
putt goes flying past the hole, and you are informed
that the striker ‘ thought the green much slower/
you know well enough that at the last moment, for
some unaccountable reason, he hit the ball harder
than he intended you have done all this yourself.

Perhaps the most glaring example of mendacity
occurs when the eighteen-inch to two -footer is missed,

210 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

and you are told that the mistake was due to pure
carelessness, or not taking sufficient pains, when
nothing else was responsible but a sudden surge of
mental fright in the shape of a small voice reminding
the player that he had missed many such a putt
before.

In putting, what I want to discover is how to make
sure of hitting the ball as you know it should be hit
on all occasions, or, in other words, how to stop those
sudden attacks of flinching that paralyse the very
best of styles, and upset the very best of players.

CHAPTER III
CLUBS THEIR SELECTION AND PURCHASE

IT goes without saying that something must be
written about the implements of the game the
selection and purchase of clubs, etc., and although
the professional’s point of view may be justly con-
sidered as flavoured by interest, it will do no harm if
his opinion be recorded of other aspects of the question.
I ‘ve heard it said, ‘ Show me a man’s bag of clubs and
I will tell you the sort of golfer he is,’ and it is doubt-
less a very good test, but there are plenty of exceptions.
I remember a celebrated match at Westward Ho,
some years ago, between a member of the Royal
North Devon, an international player, and a member
of the Artisan Club. The latter turned up to play with
an old brassie, a cleek, and an iron of sorts, and he
won, and heaps of people to my mind drew a fatally
wrong conclusion from the result. They argued that
the clubs didn’t matter, and it ‘s quite common to
hear the same argument to-day. ‘ The best round
I ever played was one day when I went out with
four old clubs/ is a sample ; but the secret of the
riddle is surely to be looked for in the man’s attitude
towards the clubs, and not in the clubs themselves.

You can accept it as a fact the clubs do matter.

211

212 PROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

In the match cited above I could only see the case of a
* golfer born,’ but with a serious laxity of judgment
that led him to treat the game with an indignity
bound in the long run to react against himself, and
therein lies the reason why, fine golfer as he is,
much to the disappointment of many he has never
4 arrived/

But this sort of attitude is an extreme one, and
need not be treated very seriously. I might mention
in passing the other extreme, that of the man who
insists on carrying some thirteen to sixteen clubs for
a round, mostly irons of all sorts of conceivable
patterns he breeds trouble of another sort. His
position is, ‘I would rather have a club with me in
case I want it than leave it in the locker ‘ (the caddie
question being naturally allowed to drop out). His
danger lies in the insidious attack made on his
capacity for decision, by having several clubs equal
to the same work. I saw a very good example of that
one year in the ‘Varsity match. The top couple were
having a tremendous match at the last hole the
player in question was dormy ; for his second shot he
had what appeared to me to be a straightforward
cleek shot to the hole, but he stood looking at the ball,
and one after the other pulled out his driving -mashie,
cleek, and short spoon. Hesitation was so marked
that most of the small ring of spectators could not
prevent a smile. In the end he half hit the shot, and
if his opponent hadn’t been also attacked by some
enemy, the match would have been halved. As it
was, the hole was halved in a none too creditable six.

CLUBS SELECTION AND PURCHASE 213

We need not waste much time in considering the
man who fusses about his clubs so much that he is
universally voted a nuisance, but there are such.
One I know, and he is known to quite a number of
the profession as ‘ Mephistopheles,’ partly because he
somewhat resembles the artistic representation of
the prince, and partly because of his diabolical
ingenuity in finding causes for grumbling. Every
person he plays with ‘ has a better set of clubs than
his own.’ He never has a grip put on but what
it ‘s ‘ too thick under the third finger/ or ‘ too thin
under the right thumb ‘ ; if you make him a driver the
chances are you will have to unmake it within a
week. He has now got it into his head that what he
wants is ‘ a split hickory shaft,’ and I ‘ve heard of
him lately peevishly bemoaning his lot because he
cannot get one, not that he would recognise it if he
could.

My excuse for mentioning this case is that, capable
and keen player as this gentleman undoubtedly is,
there is no doubt whatever in my mind that it ‘s
nothing but his mental attitude towards his clubs
which accounts for his failure to get his handicap lower.

I hope it will be understood, from what has been
said so far, that I am all in favour of taking a keen
interest in one’s own set of clubs. I confess that I
like to hear a young player say that he J s ‘ got the
best iron in the world.’ Not that I ‘m pleased with
the truth of the statement, but I expect to see him,
when the club comes to his hand, play the shot effec-
tively and that ‘s what generally happens.

214 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

As to the number of clubs necessary, it would be
very unwise to lay down a hard-and-fast rule ; the
advice given by the big men is sound enough. Have
a look at their sets in Golf and Golfers . My own whim
leads me to carry, besides the ordinary set, two
extras a straight-faced iron with upright lie, mainly
for shots against a strong wind, and a putting-cleek.
My ordinary putter is of the swan-neck type, and I
rely on it for most of the work ; but when I find the
greens unusually keen and slippy, the extra loft on
the putting-cleek is a great help in checking the ball.
That brings the number of my pack to eleven driver,
brassie, spoon, cleek, straight-faced iron, iron, medium
iron, mashie, niblick, putter, and putting cleek.

Of course, if the event is important, I may include
an extra driver, but things are not going well if I
have to use it, and it only goes into the bag ‘ in case
of accidents.’

And now for a word on the all-important point of
what club actually suits. First, the weight and lie
of the club are very important points, and must
depend on the style of play and the player. The depth
of face both in drivers and irons is also bound up with
the style of the player, but a further consideration is
the kind of course you play on. A deep-faced club
is more useful where the texture of the grass keeps the
ball well up off the ground, and a shallow face where
the grass is so fine that the ball ‘ sits very tight/

There is nothing very much to be said for the
* patent clubs ‘ without heels, or with many heels.
The usual pattern gives plenty of hitting face, and if

CLUBS SELECTION AND PURCHASE 215

you have developed the habit of hitting the ball off
the socket, I do not think it is going to help your
game simply to use a club where the socket has been
cunningly put out of the way. You had far better
understand the cause of the trouble, and put it right.
And when you are face to face with half a dozen clubs
more or less alike, buy the one you fancy, never mind
about anybody else. I ‘m convinced fancy must be
allowed to play a very important part, presuming that
it is generally the outcome of one’s own particular
measurements and power, and it comes therefore under
the heading of things to be taken seriously. Of course
to those who would ask, How do I know what club
suits my style ? I have but one piece of advice to
give. Go to your local professional certainly don’t
go to a friend who happens to be a short handicap
player and ask him to buy for you. The friend is
nearly always an enemy in disguise. The test is
simple, can you trust your friend to buy the club
that he couldn’t play with himself ? Mind you, it ‘s
very unlikely that the same club will suit you both ;
of course, you will try and make it do, but my point
is you can do better with professional advice. My
own experience is that very seldom does the crack
player select any other club than the one he would
purchase for himself, and the seller finds himself in
a position where he must be patient and acquiesce.

It is an all too common sight to find keen golfers
assiduously practising with a club that is built for an
entirely different style from their own. Think of
the years some people spend before they have

216 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

definitely settled the style of club to play with ; and
why ? There should be no difficulty about it ; but
the importance of being properly fitted with your
clubs cannot be emphasised too much. I feel I must
make my reasons for the advice given above quite
clear. First, the professional, however dull you may
think him, is bound to know something about the
points of a club. You cannot spend years of your
life fitting shafts to heads, and handling hundreds
of clubs, without acquiring knowledge, and the
practical knowledge that counts. You may think
this knowledge is also common to many of the crack
amateurs, and perhaps it is, but it is astonishing how
many of them are hopelessly at sea in judging a
club. I had an instance of this some time back. I
happened to be in a brother professional’s shop soon
after a very well-known golfer had paid a visit. My
friend drew my attention to a nice-looking iron club,
and told me what had happened : the head of the
club was badly ‘ lying off,’ and the player had quite
failed to realise it, and took some time to grasp what
was meant. Now I warrant there are not half a
dozen professionals in England that would not have
spotted it in a few seconds. Again, the professional
can, if he has had any apprenticeship in coaching at
all, tell you the style and stamp of club best suited to
your methods of play, if you give him a chance. So
I hold that from any point of view, if you want advice,
the professional is the safest man to go to, and it
will mean the soundest economy in the long run.
Perhaps I ought to say a word about an idea that

CLUBS SELECTION AND PURCHASE 217

sometimes crops up, that the professional is likely to
sell you rubbish. That idea is really too stupid.
To say nothing about the man’s self-respect, it is so
ridiculous from a business point of view, so certain
not to pay ; and the modern professional is neither
ignorant of advertisements nor of the value of
customers.

And here may I crave the reader’s pardon if I
introduce, for a brief space, what is not strictly part
of the work expected of me. My excuse for doing so
is that it affects all professionals and is but vaguely
understood by their masters. I am thinking of the
growing custom of golfers to buy what they need
from the big stores, and from the shops in the town
which run golf requisites as a side line. The condition
of the professionals’ trade has been altered very much
of late years ; the steady improvement in machinery,
and the advent of the rubber-cored ball, has affected
the opportunity for business tremendously. A few
years ago, repairs were an item that meant something
to the professional, and wooden clubs did not stand
the punishment from the ‘ gutty ‘ ball for any length
of time. Nowadays, everybody knows that repairs
hardly count, and that a driver with ordinary usage
will last almost a lifetime. I know well enough
that these conditions are in the natural order of
things, but I would appeal to all members of the
golfing public that what trade there is should be given
to the local professional.

Of course I shall be told that the golf professional
makes a pretty good thing of it, and we all know

218 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

that, in the minds of many, fabulous sums are made
by the ordinary professional ; but in reality the
whole reward is outrageously exaggerated. That
there are plums in the profession every one admits,
and there are still plenty of desirable posts, and
those that get them know themselves lucky and are
for the most part grateful, but I do think the golfing
public have got the whole perspective wrong. What
they see is only the foreground of the picture, but
there are distances beyond. If the truth must be
told, the condition of the rank and file is fast becoming
a very serious problem. All those who have had
anything to do with the Professional Golfers’
Association are painfully aware of it. Under modern
commercial methods the golf professional is fast being
squeezed out ‘ snowed under,’ as one very tersely
put it, and through no fault of his own. Surely it
will be a very great pity, and have far-reaching conse-
quences for the game, when the profession is reduced
to that state that it fails to attract the keen working
man ! Of course the golf professional can be done
without, so we are told, but is it desirable ?

Here is a case that came to my notice recently.
A new club, inland, advertised for a professional and
selected an apprentice, a young keen player, from a
seaside course. The announcement of the appointment
was made with a flourish of trumpets in the local papers :

* Mr. had played round with the committee and

had given every satisfaction, and was appointed, etc.
etc.’ Well, this young fellow had been employed a
month at a purely nominal fee, and had so far only

CLUBS SELECTION AND PURCHASE 219

been asked to play one round on the course. He
certainly had given a few lessons, but not many, and
the clubs and balls sold counted for little. What
must the point of view of this young golfer be ? You
can see quite easily what has happened. The com-
mittee had made the appointment, and there they
finished. The members, if they thought twice about
it, surmised that all the other members were engaging
the professional all day long, and supporting his
shop in the interval ; and it was nobody’s particular
business. The result is that the young fellow would
have done far better for himself as a road mender.

I do hope my readers will not consider this an
uncalled-for wail. It is a serious problem in the minds
of those who have the interest of the profession at
heart, and I believe a lot can be done if the needful
purchases are given to the club professional. After
all, the game of golf to most members is a sport, not
to be associated with the business of life, and besides,
if I had space, it would be quite easy to prove that
buying clubs or balls at the great emporiums is
thoroughly bad economics. Their system is a sprat
to catch a mackerel, and you don’t always get the
sprat.

CHAPTER IV
TEMPERAMENT AND OTHER MATTERS

WHEN the last word has been written about the right
and the wrong club to play with, and the wisest way
to select them, and when the pupil has been carefully
and well informed as to the best and most effective
way of hitting the ball, and in practice has become
the equal of the master, there still remains the most
terrifying problem of all the temperament of the
man for the game, to use a vague expression that
will be more or less understood, but which at the most
is only a label for a group of activities far beyond my
power to analyse.

The equipment of the man to become the golfer
seems to me to have been greatly neglected by the
writers on the game, certainly as a subject for
analytical study, and surely not because it is un-
important, or because it is generally understood.
Occasionally a writer refers to it, but incidentally to
something he considers more essential, and there are
rare chapters to be found here and there on training,
etc., but to my mind it has not received anything like
the attention that it deserves. That the mechanical
skill in playing the shots can be acquired needs no
proof : the strikingly high standard reached by the

120

TEMPERAMENT AND OTHER MATTERS 221

rank and file of the professionals has been noted time
and again, and is admitted by every one, and I should
go so far as to say that eighty per cent, of the men
who take up golf before the age of thirty would
certainly be given a certificate of * scratch possible ‘
by any physiologist. That they do not become
scratch players, or anything approaching it, is certain,
and it is just as certain that the man beats himself.

Every one has had experience of the type of man
who, when he finds himself losing holes, invariably
commences complaining that he is far from well
it is liver or indigestion or rheumatism or some such
ailment. One such I well remember : if he were
beaten he would come back and carefully explain to
all who would listen why it was thus discounting any
credit due to the game of the man who had just beaten
him.

At last one of his victims turned the tables, in this
way : he laid himself out from the start of the round
systematically to pretend that the man was bad
4 looked bad,’ in fact * ought not to be playing.’
Needless to say he won, and he might have gone on
collecting half-crowns to this day, if he had not been
so elated with his success that he gave the joke away.

Only the other day I was playing a round with a
visitor, who asked me if I had seen so-and-so play
lately, mentioning one of our well-known professionals,
and added ‘ what a fine driver he has become/ and then
went on to say how he had ‘ pulled his leg/ This is
his story. He said, c I was playing with him last week
and noticed that the first five or six holes he was

222 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

getting a tremendous length from the tee, and I said
to him by way of a joke, ” You don’t seem to be
driving quite so far as you used ; how is it ? ” ” Don’t
you think so, sir ? ” he answered, ” well, I thought I
was getting a bit further if anything ” ; and from
that point he pressed so abominably that he never
got another drive clean.’ Such tactics cannot be
recommended, for it must be admitted that they do
not represent the best sportsmanship, but the stories are
true, and at least illustrate what a very slight mental
disturbance will upset even the most skilful golfers.

I could wish this obvious fact were more clearly
understood. Pages and pages of paper are everlast-
ingly being filled with the merest nonsense about
why the shot is missed how it should have been
played, temporary loss of form, etc. etc. and the
real reason why is carefully disguised from the
player, who is seldom made to face the real truth of
the matter. Only yesterday I found an old friend of
mine explaining in one of the morning papers c that

Mr. was such a fine putter because he struck the

ball in such and such a way.’ Rubbish, my friend !
There are hundreds of us who have quite a sound style
in putting, and know all about ‘ top spin ‘ and * drag ‘
and the rest of it, and who putt abominably just when
we are most anxious to putt well.

I must ask pardon for deserting the subject for a
moment, but I cannot resist presenting this idea to
the large group of golfers, links architects and others,
who make themselves responsible for altering and
bunkering the course. The one and only idea prevalent

TEMPERAMENT AND^OTHER MATTERS 223

amongst them seems to be that of expanding the old
conventional system of making frontal attacks on the
game ; the more daring spirits amongst them are
certainly creeping very much closer to the hole, and
others have hopes of earning a reputation by placing
bunkers that are manifestly unfair ; but, speaking
generally, the result of their efforts is, that a good half
of the bunkers are more of a help than a hindrance.

Here is an example. I hold, and I think the
majority of the experts at the game will agree with
me, that the most difficult four to get is at a two-shot
hole, just a drive and an iron, on a flat piece of ground,
without a single bunker at all. And why ? Simply
because it attacks the man. There is no help as to
distance, no help as to the kind of shot best suited.
But then along comes the architect, and plants a
bunker for a pull, and another for the slice and the
problem of distance is gone. He next (if he is modern
and up-to-date) practically surrounds the green with
bunkers, and the kind of shot to be played is decided
for you.

However, to get back to what I wish to say about
temperament. My experience as a professional at
Oxford afforded me ample opportunity of realising
the importance of having, or not having, the right
kind of temperament. At the University tempera-
ment looms very large, and the order of things lends
itself to it. The importance of gaining a ‘ Blue,’
the keen and desperate struggle of those who fancy
they have a chance, the short time possible for trials,
and the attention given to the match itself by the

224 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

golfing public, all tend to produce a degree of tension
which is scarcely realised outside the universities. The
captain is the autocrat, and has the selection in his
hands, and it is no easy task. It is not a question
of selecting from a few, there are always dozens of
likely men, and a regular bunch of players who> if
their handicaps register their worth, are all of the
same rank ; so that in the end it becomes a question
of who has the best temperament, and that is where
the trouble begins.

I could fill many pages with curious and startling
examples. Of course, the man who is clearly
lacking gets found out in the first trial or so, and
gives little trouble, except that he invariably becomes
a somewhat loquacious critic ; but it is the type that
can stand the strain of the minor events that upsets
calculations.

Many captains stood by the idea that the man who
was accustomed to the importance of other contests,
say, cricket or racquets, would at least be less likely
to break, but experience has failed conspicuously to
make this evident ; it recalls the old story that they
might ‘hit the ball if it was bowled to them.’ I
remember a few years ago Cambridge had a golfer,
the equal in skill of any of his contemporaries. He
accomplished very creditable things in the preliminary
trials, but when it came to the match, he simply
played like an eighteen handicap man, and cost his
side a pocketful of holes. Apparently this result
was not explained correctly ; for they played him
again the next year, when he did the very same thing.

TEMPERAMENT AND OTHER MATTERS 225

Oxford had many examples too, some of them really
too painful to recall. All that can be said is that the
importance of the occasion becomes an obsession,
something goes wrong, and the captain is blamed for
playing men who have not got the temperament.
How on earth he is to know their breaking-point, I
cannot imagine, for there seems to be no outward
and visible sign of lack of the inward grace.

And what is true of the amateur is equally true of
the professional. Of course, in the ordinary round
there is not much chance of discovering how one
stands, there is little to excite or test one ; but in
competitions and tournaments the strain is inevitable,
and it must be remembered that these events are the
central points of a keen professional’s existence. He
must gain his laurels then or not at all. If he would
become one of those who count, he cannot ignore the
big events, because it means being himself ignored.
And it is known to all of us that the ranks of the
profession are full of expert golfers skilful enough
to break the record of any course who, when faced
with the necessity of carrying a card and a pencil,
become for the time being temporarily paralysed.
A good story that will illustrate this is of an event
that happened at a recent championship. Two
rounds had been completed, and on the evening
previous to the final day some half-dozen of the
professionals were discussing the results and the
chances. The man who ultimately won was amongst
them, but stood ninth or tenth on the list. One of
them started reading the list aloud, and the big man

226 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

interjected after each name his opinion. ‘ You can
cross him out,’ or ‘ you must leave him in,’ etc. etc.,
and his verdict was so remarkably correct, that the
story got a vogue at once.

And yet these very men, at least some of them,
have grown grey and old, and have never been able
to get used to the limelight of the big events. What
it is that is lacking in their composition (or is there
in too large a quantity) is beyond the comprehension
of most people to call it nerves is only to provide
a label, and it does not help.

And how far it is possible to train oneself in this
respect, or to improve one’s equipment, is, to me at
any rate, vague and uncertain, and it is here I ask
for help from the learned.

But there are points that present no uncertainty,
and on which I offer an opinion and advice. I do
not think it possible for the very diffident man to win
a big event, or the man who is intensely self-conscious ;
the former lacks the right kind of courage, and the
latter will of a surety beat himself ; and if any one
knows himself for such he is well advised to shun
the big events, and save his energy for other and
perhaps more useful channels.

The kind of courage needed is very difficult to deter-
mine. Lord Jim was magnificently courageous, as a
man, but he would never have won a golf champion-
ship. Nor is it the stamp of courage that is given
to bullying and much challenging and hard swearing,
if it is correct even to suppose that such courage
is likely to succeed. Certainly a most important

TEMPERAMENT AND OTHER MATTERS 227

and indispensable factor in the successful golfer is
control control, in a sense which I will endeavour to
explain and this at any rate it is within the power
of most to develop ; and yet how many practise it ?
To half the golfers I would say, ‘ It is not practice
with the club you need, but practice with the man ;
it is not skill you lack, but control/ And in this
connection I wish to strike a note of warning, in the
hope that it will do some good, but I am glad to
say that it only relates to a small section of the
brethren, and that the guilty ones are but a few.
The first point is, that they allow themselves to drift
into a stupid childish state when their manners and
temper get out of hand, doubtless because they have
been led on and made a fuss of, but it is none the
less deplorable. One sees only too frequently, when
a shot is missed, the club flying after the ball. One
does not want to make much of it, but in anybody it
is ridiculous, and in a professional simply unpardon-
able. A much worse case is the constant use of
torrents of bad language, and I have in mind one or
two offenders, who by their skill are fast being
considered amongst the showmen of the game. This
cannot be dismissed as a puritanical attitude, because
most of us would plead guilty to a certain extent,
but there are limits, and these men seem bent on
breaking records ; their general make-up towards the
game and its friends leaves very much to be desired.
They assume a silly, swaggering, devil-may-care sort
of role, that in itself might be passed over as of little
account, but for the fact that it is accompanied by

228 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

such foul language. Of course, I feel that amongst
those friends of the game who count, this sort of thing
is valued correctly, and explained as pure vulgarity,
but it is nevertheless a danger.

I know what a good many of the best and most
respected members of the profession think of it ;
they are disgusted and deplore it. But that, to my
mind, is not sufficient. The offenders must be clearly
given to understand that their behaviour is a serious
menace to the prosperity of the profession, and
pressure must be brought to bear to make them
mend their manners. It behoves every one to see
that the tone of the brotherhood is not permanently
lowered by a few impossible people.

Control over oneself and its meaning cannot be
emphasised too much. Any little giving way that
means a loosening of this control is a danger point ;
it is certain that if you cannot control the man, you
cannot control the game. Of course, every one can
recognise the obvious examples of lack of control,
most of us know by experience what it means, but
it is the craftily disguised forms that one must train
oneself to recognise and defeat. Nothing is more
common than to see one bad shot followed by another.
How often does a slice of good luck for your opponent
unnecessarily affect you ? Who amongst us has not
had the experience of the days when equity seems
ruled out of the game ? You may play the hole in
a perfect five, and find your opponent misses three
shots, and gets a four ; hole after hole slips away from
you, and yet you are playing points better than your

TEMPERAMENT AND OTHER MATTERS 229

opponent, and you can still win, if you can resist the
terrifying attack on your control. One could go on
enumerating dozens of ways in which one’s control is in-
sidiously undermined, but I feel unequal to explaining
clearly what I mean, for I am but a beginner myself.

And out of control will grow confidence, which can
hardly be described as a cause, but an effect ; and if
there is one truism in this game of golf, it is that
confidence is more than halfway to success ; and I
will finish this section by giving what to me seemed
a splendid example of courage, control, and con-
fidence.

The exemplar was Braid, the occasion the open
championship at Prestwick 1908, and the instance his
second shot to the twelfth hole in the third round ;
and of those who saw it few who understand are
ever likely to forget. Many things had happened
previously, one hole had very nearly destroyed all his
chance ; but the state of affairs stood, when the third
round was being played, that Braid was well in it,
but so were several other dangerous men. When he
came to his drive, which needless to say was straight
and far, he hesitated. Why ? Ninety -nine out of a
hundred of us could not imagine ; there seemed nothing
to do but hit the ball a long way, and get as near the
wall as possible, so as to allow for a pitch over on
to the green.

Braid evidently thought otherwise, for he calmly
walked the whole length of the distance, and then
took his brassey. It is not too much to say that a
regular shock went through the crowd ; a friend stand-

230 FROM PROFESSIONAL’S POINT OF VIEW

ing near me said, ‘ Good heavens, he is never going for
it ! It will cost him the championship ! ‘ and be it
noted it was no ordinary risk there was quite a good
chance of being tucked up under the wall and neither
was it a ‘ death or glory ‘ shot.

Well, he went for it, all out this time ; and if you
wanted to have a record of how it is done, you should
have snapped him then. The ball carried the wall,
and, never an inch off the line, ran up on to the green,
and came to rest a few feet from the pin. The crowd
were excited enough, but when Jimmy started to
move after the shot, it was with the same long steady
stride that in the end wears us all down, and his face
had the same sleepy, rather tired expression, yet he
had just played a shot that no man living could
better, and very few equal. And as if this shot was
not enough, he holed the putt, and how many, even
if the first shot were possible, could have holed that
putt ?

It has been suggested that when the psychologist
has examined, photographed, and duly explained the
type of man who is temperamentally best fitted to
succeed to championships, we may not like him.
His equipment may of necessity exclude some of the
traits of character loved by all, but I have little faith
in this point of view, for what I have observed I
1 like it much/ and would willingly take such, say, on a
voyage to 4 Pitcairn to find Victoria/ which is saying
a good deal, to those who understand, and there I must
leave it.

And at this point I feel like one who has just emerged

TEMPERAMENT AND OTHER MATTERS 231

from a dreadful bunker, after hacking away at the
ball with a club ill adapted for the purpose.

But the ball is out at last, and to you, my partner,
for keeping you so long, and trying your patience so
much, I ask pardon. The round has been unnecessarily
long, and the form shown abominably bad, but it will
serve a purpose if, in some of the shots, you have
caught the suggestion of a new idea that may be made
to help.

PART III

MEN OF GENIUS
By C. K. HUTCHISON

MEN OF GENIUS

GENIUS has been defined as ‘ the infinite capacity
for taking pains,’ and the definition is certainly a
happy one when applied to golf, for no one can hope
to excel at this most exacting of all games unless
possessed of this quality. Perfection of style can
only be acquired by careful thought and patient
practice.

Good style is the invariable attribute of the first-
class exponent of every game. Though primarily
due to natural gifts of eye and muscle, it must be
assisted by sufficient intellectual ability to enable
these gifts to be utilised to their fullest advantage.

There are, of course, certain geniuses of every game,
who apparently do many things wrong in point of
form and yet do everything perfectly in point of
result but the exponent of an eccentric style can
hardly hope to produce such consistently good results
as the more orthodox performer. Style is the manner
that most completely and effectively conforms with
the matter a fact which the professional adviser
might well bear in mind when he is vainly endeavour-
ing to impart his own free style to the middle-aged
neophyte, whose stiffening muscles and possibly
rotund proportions naturally resent such unusual
treatment.

2S5

236 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

Voluminous treatises, supplemented by instan-
taneous photography, must have familiarised the
styles of the leading celebrities to the present
generation of golfers, so I am not going to attempt
to describe them in detail, but will merely endeavour
to point out their chief characteristics.

During the last fifteen years the foremost figures
in the golfing world have undoubtedly been the three
great professionals, generally known as the Triumvirate.
Not only have they achieved a wonderful record, but
they are extraordinarily attractive players to watch.
Although Vardon, Braid, and Taylor are men of totally
different build, they possess in common unusual
strength of wrist and hand, and a profound know-
ledge of wrist-work ; and it is in both these essentials
that the professionals can claim a marked superiority
over the majority of amateurs. It not only enables
them to hit the ball very far and straight with appar-
ently little effort, but gives them the additional
advantage of being able to control distances with a
half -shot, where feebler folk must rely on a full swing.

Mr. Darwin considers that the half -shot is the more
difficult shot of the two. Personally I cannot agree
with him, and certainly the leading professionals aver
a decided preference for the half-shot, and the
majority, at any rate, carry out this theory in
practice. Vardon is undoubtedly the most graceful
of the three great professors.

There is a beautiful rhythm about all his strokes,
and a perfection of poise which is quite unique. Mr.
Darwin, though obviously a sincere admirer, considers

MEN OF GENIUS 237

that Vardon’s style is hardly a safe one to attempt
to copy. He takes exception to the rather abrupt
lift of the club in the middle of the backward swing.
I cannot help thinking that Vardon has lately
modified the one peculiarity in an otherwise faultless
performance.

Braid’s style always gives me the impression of
great power under perfect control. He certainly
possesses a reserve force, which he produces with
unfailing regularity when the occasion demands.
No conceivable bad lie has the slightest terrors
for him, and the straightness and accuracy of
his recoveries from really horrible situations are
even more wonderful than the amazing distance he
succeeds in hitting the ball. Another very notice-
able feature of his game is his perfect command of
trajectory with every club. His long low shots against
a head wind with wooden and iron clubs alike are
magnificent, and he is perhaps the greatest master of
the running approach. At one period of his career
he was a distinctly moderate putter, but it is a rare
occasion now when his work on the green can be
described as faulty.

When Taylor won his first championship at
Sandwich his driving was so accurate that no hazards
existed for him except the guide-flags, at least one of
which he is said to have struck. He is without
exception the most machine-like and accurate player
that has as yet appeared. His driving style is quite
peculiar to himself, combining a very flat swing with
a most curious finish as Mr. Darwin describes it,

238 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

with the hands tucked away in the pit of the stomach.
It is a wonderfully compact style, with the right
elbow kept very close to the side, suggesting a tre-
mendous amount of wrist-work. At one time he
favoured the very open stance, but, like many others,
seems to have modified this peculiarity considerably
of late years.

Outside the Triumvirate there is no player who has
played finer or more consistent golf than A. Herd,
though he can hardly be said to have had his fair
share of fortune in the championship. But he is always
there or thereabouts, and the reason is not hard to
find, as he has probably the truest swing of any living
golfer. He differs from most of his professional
brethren by adhering to the old style of gripping the
club. In fact, he seems to sink the club well into
the palm of the hand, but it does not apparently
hamper his wrist- work, as is proved by his swing
being distinctly long and very supple. A considerable
amount of body work is conspicuous, and his crouching
address and determined waggle are distinctive features
of his game. He is equally good in all departments
a fine driver, good approacher, and usually an
excellent putter, though failure to hole the four-
footers certainly cost him the championship at
Sandwich in 1911.

When Arnaud Massy won the championship at
Hoylake in 1907, he only fulfilled the prophecies of
those best qualified to judge his qualities. The
severe weather conditions which prevailed on that
occasion suited his style of play, as he is very power-

MEN OF GENIUS 239

fully built, and drives a very long ball with a decidedly
low trajectory. His swing is distinctly of the
4 headsman ‘ type, the club being taken over the head
and not round the shoulder, and he appears to get
an extra twist of the wrists (which must be unusually
strong and supple) at the top of the swing which seems
to give him additional power. His left knee turns
unusually late in the upward swing, giving an im-
pression of great solidity of stance. He is a beautiful
putter, and, as Mr. Darwin points out, shares with
other fine putters the habit of taking the putter well
back from the ball, and consequently striking it a
very free blow.

G. Duncan is another example of the ‘ headsman ‘
type. He is supposed to have modelled his style
on Vardon’s, but Duncan certainly takes the club
higher over the head than the former does. In other
respects his style bears a distinct resemblance to his
model. Beautiful free wrist- work and an exception-
ally fine follow-through help him to drive a tremendous
distance, and his iron play is crisp, clean, and well
controlled. The extraordinary rapidity of his play
might possibly be slightly modified, but the results
obtained are surely an object-lesson to the players
who fondly imagine that their wearisome methods will
help them to attain fame.

Sherlock is a striking example of a player improving
one department of his game by changing the course
he most habitually plays on. Always a beautiful
putter and approacher, it is only since his advent to
Stoke Poges that he has attained the length of

240 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

driving which is absolutely essential in the highest
class of golf. Possessed of a sound quiet style, he
appears to play every stroke in the simplest and most
natural manner, and his putting method is particularly
easy and effective. He favours the old fashion of
grip, even with the putter. The only peculiarity
about his style is his habit of addressing the ball with
the extreme toe of the driver in fact the club head is
almost clear of the ball.

Jack White is another very fine putter. When he
won the championship at Sandwich he never missed
a putt which he could reasonably be expected to hole.
Contrary to Sherlock, he interlocks very considerably,
and when holing out adopts a stance with the right
foot immediately behind the ball. He is apt to go
off his driving now and then, and on these occasions a
disastrous hook becomes very evident ; and, curiously,
it is a fault which he shares with perhaps the finest
putter who ever handled a club. I imagine that few
will dispute Willie Park’s claim to that title. Park’s
method of putting certainly favoured the use of the
right hand, and he hit the ball with a rising club, thus
imparting overspin, and endowing the ball with that
running-on power which was a very conspicuous
feature of his play on the green. He was hardly ever
short with an approach putt, and holing out had no
terrors for him.

Approach putting was, I think, certainly at one
time, the deadliest part of Andrew Kirkaldy’s game.
He tied with Park for the championship at Mussel-
burgh, but was defeated in the play-off. A fine

c < c c

EDWARD RAY
Open Golf Champion, 1912

(To face p. 241

MEN OF GENIUS 241

player with all his clubs, his touch with the wooden
putter, particularly at St. Andrews when the greens
were glassy, was wonderful. With a quick, short
swing, he drove a very long ball, and could punch it
an incredible distance with a half -shot with the iron.
In the opinion of many he is the finest golfer who
never quite succeeded in winning the championship.

Of all professional golfers E. Ray, the champion,
is the most prodigious smiter. Tall and powerfully
built, there are no half -measures about his game.
He seems to put every ounce of his weight into the
stroke, but the distinct forward lunge of the body is
sometimes apt to make his long game a trifle erratic.
He is certainly one of the few players who always
appears to be perfectly unconcerned and happy
even on the most important occasion.

Tom Vardon is the happy possessor of a very
similar temperament. His departure for America
is a great loss to Sandwich, where his cheerful dis-
position made him a general favourite. As an iron
player and putter he had no superior, but his driving,
especially against the wind, sometimes let him down
a little. He invariably drove a very high ball, the
result probably of playing nearly all his golf at
Sandwich.

Tom Ball came into prominence in 1908, when he
was second in the championship at Prestwick. He
repeated the performance the very next year at Deal,
and also succeeded in winning the News of the World
tournament. His style of driving is somewhat
curious, by reason of a kind of dip and knuckle in of

242 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

the right knee in the act of striking. He is a fine
approacher, especially with the mashie, and a deadly
wielder of the aluminium putter. He believes in
giving the back of the hole a chance.

There is no greater character in the world of golf
than Bernard Sayers. Not only is he a wonderfully
scientific player, who makes up for his lack of inches
by every trick which the ingenuity of man could invent,
but he is a splendid instructor, always ready with some
new-fangled club or latest infallible tip to revive the
jaded spirits of the struggling tyro, or for that matter
of the accomplished player when off his game.

R. Thompson is another player who, like Sayers,
learnt his golf at North Berwick. He is a steady,
consistent player, who only lacks that little extra
power which seems necessary to the winning of
championships.

W. Watt, who hails from the same part of Scotland,
is a very similar player, and, like most East Lothian
golfers, is a beautiful pitcher and putter.

Mayo is another very steady, painstaking player,
who has not so far done himself justice in the
championship.

Of the younger school Laurence Ayton and T.
Fernie are very promising.

F. Robson is one of the most promising of the
younger school. His best achievement was reaching
the final of the News of the World tournament in
1908, and giving J. H. Taylor a very hard final match
over the latter player’s own course Mid-Surrey.
He is very powerful, and possesses a fine free swing.

MEN OF GENIUS 243

At one time he appeared to play rather too much for
a pull, but I think that he has modified that tendency
considerably of late. He should have a good career
before him.

W. E. Reid is another promising young player
with a neat and effective style.

Though T. Renouf has never succeeded in winning
the championship, he has always been well up in it,
and reached the final of the News of the World
tournament in 1908. He is a very steady and
consistent performer.

The same remark applies to G. Coburn, who has
scored many successes in Ireland as well as in this
country, and Rowland Jones, Moran (who hails from
Ireland), Fulford, Ritchie, Toogood, Kinnell, J. Rowe,
T. Williamson and E. Gray have all made their
mark.

In the space at disposal it is impossible to include
many fine young players, not to mention the giants
of the past such as D. Rolland, who was the mightiest
hitter of his day, Tom Morris and his brilliant son,
the Simpsons, Willie Fernie, Willie Auchterlonie,
Allan Robertson, and many another hero whose
doughty deeds are fast fading into antiquity.

If I have been prevented by lack of space from
including all the professionals I could have wished,
how hopelessly difficult it is to select a list of amateurs
which can be deemed to be in any way representative.
There must be at least forty players, perhaps more,
who are quite capable of winning the amateur
championship. How different from the time when

244 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

probable aspirants to the honour might almost have
been counted on the fingers of one hand. Yet these
very players are still a force to be reckoned with ;
and a very considerable force too, as one of their
number, Mr. John Ball, won the event this year
(1912), and Mr. J. E. Laidlay and Mr. Horace G.
Hutchinson have both survived to the later stages of
the competition in recent years.

I imagine that few, if any, will quarrel with the
assertion that Mr. John Ball stands out pre-eminently
as the greatest amateur who ever swung a club.
He can claim the open championship, eight amateur
championships, and over a hundred medals at Hoylake
alone, not to mention three Irish championships and
four St. George’s Cups. He is the happy possessor of a
physique and a temperament singularly well adapted
to the game, and his style is a model of grace and
ease, especially since he modified the abnormally
wide stance of his more youthful days. His grip, with
the club well home in the palm of the hand, and the
right hand very much under, is certainly curious,
but I imagine that Mr. Darwin is right in saying that
the club is gripped with the second, third, and little
finger of the right hand, which allows it to ride loose
in the forefinger and thumb. He is a beautiful cleek
and iron player, and his cut shot, played with a
medium iron, which he uses even to get out of a bunker
with a steep face to surmount, is quite unique.
Mercifully he sometimes misses a short putt, though
his approach putting is usually so good that he can
well afford to miss one occasionally.

MEN OF GENIUS 245

His ofttime opponent, Mr. J. E. Laidlay, has very
nearly as fine a record. Twice amateur champion,
thrice runner-up, he also came within an ace of winning
the open championship at Prestwick in 1893. His
collection of medals is quite unique. St. Andrews,
North Berwick, Musselburgh, Muirfield, Hoylake and
Prestwick have all contributed their quota to the
harvest ; and it is little wonder that all these courses
appear to suit him equally well, as he is without
exception the most accomplished master of iron clubs.

Most players prefer one particular shot to another,
but Mr. Laidlay appears to have no preference, as he
plays every variety of iron stroke with an equal
measure of ease and success. He is also a very fine
putter, particularly on a keen green. The one weak
spot in his game has always been his wooden club play.
Not that he drives badly far from it but every now
and then there is a lapse, made more noticeable by
reason of the general excellence of the rest of his game.
Mr. Laidlay is no believer in orthodox methods.
Like Mr. Ball, he has considerably modified his stance,
but he still draws his weight away from the ball in
the back swing, and brings it back again at the moment
of impact. It is a style worthy of all admiration,
but hardly of imitation. Few, if any, have sufficient
genius to attempt such methods.

The name of the third partner, of what might well
have been called the amateur Triumvirate, so success-
fully did they defy all outside opposition for so many
years, is surely a household word wherever golf is played.
Not only has Mr. Horace G. Hutchinson a great

246 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

record as a player, but he can claim an equally great
record as a writer on the game, and has probably
done more to popularise golf than any living man.
Whether he is a benefactor thereby is a matter of
opinion. He won his first amateur championship in
1886, repeated the performance the following year,
and reached the final on two subsequent occasions.
He led the field at the end of the first day of the open
championship on the occasion of the extension of the
tournament to seventy-two holes, and needless to say
has won many medals on various courses. His style
is certainly a distinctive one, and especially noticeable
for the slackness of the knees and for what Mr. Darwin
describes as the slight ‘ hang ‘ in the middle of the
back swing. It is a loose, free style, and his swing
with iron clubs is unusually long. He is essentially
a resourceful player, with complete command over
all his clubs, even the wonderful weapon which he
invariably uses off the tee.

Scotland has certainly never produced a finer all-
round athlete than Mr. Leslie Balfour Melville.
An international football player, the best bat in
Scotland, he also won the Scottish lawn-tennis cham-
pionship, though I cannot think that the northern
climate could ever permit this game to reach a very
high standard. When he turned his attentions
seriously to golf, he quickly made his presence felt,
and crowned his achievements by winning the amateur
championship at St. Andrews in 1895. He has always
been a little more formidable at St. Andrews than
anywhere else, and no one has won so many medals

MEN OF GENIUS 247

over what is undoubtedly his favourite course. His
style is often cited as a model for the young player,
and the true deliberate swing, with the fine follow-
through of the arms in the intended line of the ball’s
flight, is worthy of imitation. Like all St. Andrews
players, he is a master of the running approach, and
unlike some of them, he is also a beautiful pitcher.
He plays all his approaches with rather a stiff wrist,
but he keeps his body beautifully still one of the
main factors of successful iron play.

Mr. S. Mure Fergusson learnt most of his golf at
St. Andrews, though he has also played a great deal
in the south. His style slightly resembles Mr.
Balfour Melville’s, especially in the deliberate back
swing and fine follow-through. He has one stroke
peculiarly his own, which he calls his push-shot, and
it is the only shot of the kind which really merits the
name. It differs very materially from the push-shot
as played by Vardon, etc., which in their case is a
misnomer stab-shot would be more appropriate.
Mr. Fergusson takes his club back a very short dis-
tance, and seems to literally push the ball with his
arms, the wrists being kept quite rigid. It is a very
powerful stroke, and especially useful against a head
wind. Although he never actually won the amateur
championship (he reached the final at Hoy lake in
1894, only to lose to Mr. Ball at the last hole), he has
a splendid record, which is only to be expected from
a player of such power and determination.

No list of those, who I trust will not resent being
designated as the older generation, is complete without

248 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

some mention of Mr. Charles Hutchings, who accom-
plished the unparalleled feat of winning the amateur
championship when a grandfather. He is one of
the few players who, though handicapped by a com-
paratively late start, still attained to the highest
class. Very straight and steady with all his clubs,
he possessed great power of forcing the ball from a
bad lie, and was invariably a beautiful putter.

Mr. Alexander Stuart was another very fine player,
and though he never won the championship, he won
the Irish championship, and had a splendid record,
especially at St. Andrews. He had a long deliberate
swing, and drove a beautiful ball with apparent
absence of effort.

Mr. H. H. Hilton is a very interesting personality
in the golfing world, not only on account of his
wonderful record, but also as supplying a link between
the old and the new schools of golf. His many
successes include two open championships, three
amateur championships, and he capped all previous
records in 1911 by winning the amateur championship
both here and in America, and by failing by the
narrowest possible margin to win the open champion-
ship at Sandwich. He is the most scientific of all the
great players, and possesses the most complete mastery
over all his clubs. To perfect control of trajectory
he adds the power to hook and slice at will, though
personally I prefer his driving when he is not going
out for the hook. He is the greatest master of the
spoon, his half -shot with that club being a most striking
feature of his game. He is a great believer in the

: v o

: .;.

MEN OF GENIUS 249

follow-through his own might almost be described as
a ‘ fling,’ by reason of its very exuberance. Another
characteristic is the care with which he adjusts his
feet in relation to the shot intended. He is facile
princeps at the short game, especially with the
mashie, when a quick stopping shot is necessary.
The ball on these occasions is played boldly up to
the hole with lots of cut, and drops like a poached
egg at the hole side.

His opponent in the memorable final of the amateur
championship at St. Andrews in 1901, Mr. J. L. Low,
is also a very scientific player, and a very good judge
of the game. He is also a leading figure in golfing
politics, and is the author of several golfing works of
no little merit. He is a great exponent not only of
the theory of the wooden putter, but also of the
correct style of wielding it, his methods being in direct
contrast to many who favour the old-fashioned type
of weapon, whether it be made of wood or aluminium.
Mr. Low trusts entirely to his wrists, taking the putter
well back, and striking the ball a beautifully free blow.
His running approaches are nearly as great a feature
of his game, and are also played in the correct style,
i.e. with a smooth stroke and a rising club, and not
with the species of jab so much affected by some of
the younger school.

In the early ‘nineties a most formidable young
player began to make his presence felt in the important
events, and in 1893 reached the semi-final of the
amateur championship. But it was not till 1896 that
the late Mr. F. G. Tait succeeded in winning the event

250 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

which proved a veritable triumph for him, as in
addition to winning the St. George’s Cup, he defeated
Messrs. Hutchings, Laidlay, Ball, Horace Hutchinson,
and Hilton successively, his play, especially in the
final, being a revelation. He very nearly succeeded
in winning the open championship at Muirfield the
same year, and won the amateur championship for
the second time at Hoylake in 1898. He reached the
final again at Prestwick in 1899, only to be defeated
by Mr. Ball at the thirty-seventh hole. In addition
to these feats, he won every important event at St.
Andrews, and again and again proved himself to be
not only indubitably the best player in the Royal
and Ancient Club, but probably the greatest amateur
Scotland ever produced. To what heights his genius
might have attained with the rubber-cored ball (which
he never had the chance of playing with) can only be
conjectured. His style gave an extraordinary impres-
sion of control and latent power, and when occasion
demanded he seldom failed to produce a great effort.
He possessed a wonderful temperament, and always
played in the true sporting spirit without which
surely games lose most of, if not all, their true value.

The late Dr. A. J. T. Allan was almost unknown as
a golfer when he won the amateur championship at
Muirfield in 1897. His sad death from pneumonia,
a few months later, prevented confirmation of the
great capabilities he undoubtedly possessed.

Mr. P. C. Anderson was the first to check the vic-
torious career of Messrs. Ball, Hutchinson, and Laid-
lay by defeating the latter in the final at Prestwick in

i cccccetet c t r
ct ‘ < t e c , c *c cc ‘ et o

MEN OF GENIUS 251

1893. Like many another winner, he owed his victory
to magnificent putting. His departure to Australia pre-
vented him from taking further part in first-class golf.
Mr. R. Maxwell first came into prominence in 1897,
when he astonished most people by defeating Mr.
Ball and Mr. Hilton in the amateur championship at
Muirfield. This performance did not surprise his
friends in the least, as they were fully aware of the
extraordinary power and accuracy of his game even
in those early days. Although he has never cared
for the glaring publicity of championships or for
competitions of any kind or description, he has suc-
ceeded in winning the amateur championship twice,
been well up in the open, and has annexed a St. George’s
Cup and every medal of note at North Berwick, St.
Andrews and Muirfield, the latter, judging by results,
being his favourite course. His style is not only quite
peculiar to himself, but I think is rather deceptive.
Though he is generally credited with having a short
swing, I am not at all sure that this is the case. Not
only does the club head describe a very wide flat arc,
but his hands travel very far, and are higher at the
top of the swing than the majority of players ever
reach. By reason of its very obvious power, one is
a trifle apt to underestimate his exceptionally fine
touch and skilful manipulation of delicate shots.
His pitch-and-run approach, played with an unusual
club, a niblick, and his long approach putts are perhaps
the most telling part of his game. Nothing could
have been finer than two of these typical approaches
to the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth holes in the final

252 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

of the last amateur championship at Muirfield. They
were so obviously played exactly as intended, that
they thoroughly deserved to win the match and the
championship. 1

We now come to a player who, though he is by
common consent one of the most brilliant of modern
golfers, has never yet succeeded in winning the
amateur championship. Mr. J. Graham has certainly
been very unlucky in this event. Time after time,
when he looked all over a winner, an opponent put up
an unusually brilliant game and snatched victory from
his grasp. Granted that fortune has been very
unkind, he is certainly not blessed with a temperament
capable of withstanding a very prolonged strain, and
I have always thought that his driving style might be
a trifle apt to break down under pressure. His swing
decidedly belongs to the ‘ headsman ‘ type, and the
club is taken abnormally high above the head. If,
in addition, he is rising a little on his toes, very perfect
timing becomes imperative to prevent the ball being
topped, and this is exactly the form in which a partial
breakdown of his game sometimes exhibits itself in
such tantalising fashion at the critical moment. I
hope that Mr. Graham will forgive my attempted
explanation of an extraordinary phenomenon, namely
that such a superlatively good player should have
failed so far to win a title to which no one ever had
greater claims. His suppleness of wrist is a very

1 Captain Hutchison’s modesty prevents his mentioning that he,
equally deserving of championship honour, was the unhappy victim
of these two very remarkable strokes. ED.

MEN OF GENIUS 253

conspicuous feature of his play, and enables him to
drive a very long ball with a rather low trajectory ;
and he is a beautiful iron player.

Mr. Edward Blackwell is famous as being the
longest driver in the history of the game. In addition
to great physical strength, he possesses a glorious
swing, and being unusually supple for such a heavily
muscled man, it is little wonder that the ball flies
such prodigious distances. He is not only a very
powerful, but is also a very crafty driver, taking every
advantage of the wind. Since taking to an aluminium
putter he has become very deadly in that department,
especially at St. Andrews, which he knows by heart.
On less familiar courses he appears sometimes to
find unusual difficulty in judging distances.

St. Andrews can also claim Mr. J. Robb as one of
her most successful products, as he learnt, or at any
rate put the finishing touches to, his game while he
was studying at the Madras College. In spite of this
fact his methods are the antithesis of what is generally
regarded as the true St. Andrews style. His swing
is short and rapid, and he relies principally on
strength of wrist and forearm. There is one feature of
his play which is common to nearly all St. Andrews
players he is a beautiful putter ; but even here he
differs from most of them by using a putting cleek
instead of the traditional wooden weapon. He was
amateur champion in 1906, was twice runner-up, and
reached the semi-final on four occasions.

Mr. E. A. Lassen first earned fame by winning the
Yorkshire championship in 1900, but although he was

254 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

recognised as a very sound player, his win in the
amateur championship at Sandwich in 1908 occasioned
considerable surprise. That it was no fluke he has
ably demonstrated by his fine play in the open
championship at Deal the following year, and by
again reaching the final at Prestwick in 1911. As
might be expected from such a hard hitter at cricket
(he was a member of the Rugby XI.), he is a powerful
player with all his clubs. His chief strength, however,
lies in his putting, and absolutely imperturbable
temperament. As Mr. Darwin points out, he is one
of the few really good putters who putt with a stiff
wrist.

If Mr. Lassen gained a surprise victory in 1908,
it was nothing as compared with Mr. Gordon Barry’s
win at Prestwick in 1905, as he was practically unknown
away from St. Andrews. That is not to be wondered
at considering that he was only twenty years of age.
At his best Mr. Barry is a most formidable player,
since he combines exceptional length with a very
accurate short game. He obtains his length by what
used to be the most remarkable follow-through.
Increasing years have doubtless led to a modification
of a performance which could only be accomplished
by a very supple and youthful anatomy.

Mr. Guy Campbell, who is a contemporary of Mr.
Barry’s, nearly emulated the latter’s youthful triumph,
when he just succumbed in the ante-final to the
eventual winner, Mr. Ball, after a match which ho
ought certainly never to have lost. He also learnt
most of his golf at St. Andrews, and has been

MEN OF GENIUS 255

conspicuously successful there. A fine driver, with a
well-controlled style, he also has a great number of
shots in his repertory so many, in fact, that he some-
times appears to find considerable difficulty in deciding
which he will play.

Few players have given a better account of them-
selves in the amateur championship than Mr. C. E.
Dick. Year after year saw him reach the last eight
quite as a matter of course, and he reached the semi-
final at Sandwich in 1908. His driving is apt to be a
trifle uncertain at times, a tendency to hook being
evident, but there are few prettier or more effective
iron players a marked characteristic of all Hoylake
golfers.

When, Mr. W. J. Travis came over from America
and carried off the amateur championship at Sandwich,
he was distinctly lucky in finding that course in a
state very nearly resembling an inland links, since it
naturally suited a player who had learnt and played
most of his golf over courses of this description. Still,
such a good player would very likely have adapted
himself to other conditions, and there can be no two
opinions about his putting, which was marvellous.

America sent us another very fine player in 1911,
Mr. Evans to wit. A long driver, and a very finished
iron player, he has only to master a tendency to
miss short putts to attain the highest honours. In
addition to his brilliant play, he displayed a true
sporting spirit, and made many friends during his short
visit to this country. As he is only twenty years of
age, he should have a brilliant future before him.

256 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

Mr. Abe Mitchell aroused great interest at Hoylake
in 1910, and sealed his reputation at Westward Ho !
two years later, playing Mr. John Ball to the thirty-
eighth hole in the final the furthest to which it has
ever run. One of many brothers, who are all good
players, he learnt his golf at Ashdown Forest, where,
I believe, the Cantelupe Club is practically composed
of the Mitchell family. He stands well up to the ball,
and hits it a terrific distance with an unusually high
trajectory. His iron play is a trifle crude at present,
but he putts well, and with more experience should
become a great player. Like J. H. Taylor he can
apparently afford to dispense with the orthodox
follow-through. He seems to stop his hands imme-
diately after the club meets the ball, and in this respect
is the very opposite to Mr. F. Woolley. When these
two players met in the championship at Hoylake, it
was very interesting to compare their respective
methods, which produced such similar results. Mr.
Woolley has the shortest back swing of any first-class
player, but makes up for its brevity by an unusually
long and vigorous follow-through. His swing always
reminds me of Mr. B. J. T. Bosanquet’s drive at
cricket. In spite of this idiosyncrasy, he drives a very
long straight ball, especially against a head wind.

His chief rival in the Midlands, Mr. F. Carr, has a
much more orthodox style, and created a very
favourable impression at Hoylake in 1910, and at
Prestwick the following year, when he defeated Mr.
Gordon Simpson in the international match after
losing five out of the first six holes.

MEN OF GENIUS 257

Mr. Palmer, the third representative of the Midlands
school of golf, is a striking example of a strong
athletic man taking up golf late in life with marked
success. That he is a splendid match player he
clearly demonstrated at St. Andrews in 1907, when
he reached the final of the championship. He plays
with a half-swing and hits the ball a very shrewd
punch, but he owes most of his success to his putting,
which is uniformly excellent. He has apparently a
firm belief in keeping the left elbow well out, and
trusting entirely to the wrists.

If successful score play demands special attributes,
Mr. E. Harris must surely possess them in toto, as he
not only wins a great number of competitions, but he
is invariably second or third on the very rare occasions
when he fails to win outright. Always a beautiful
iron player, he has latterly increased the length of his
driving very considerably. He stands with his feet
very close together, which peculiarity he shares with
another fine player, Mr. Beveridge, who appears to
win competitions at Deal in spite of any penalty the
committee may impose. Mr. Darwin considers that
his driving is rather shorter than it used to be. There
is no doubt that it is much steadier, both results being
attributable to the same cause a modification of the
tremendous hook he used to play for.

Mr. H. W. de Zoete is probably the greatest exponent
of the hook amongst first-class players. He stands
with his feet very wide apart, the right foot drawn
back, and the ball nearly opposite his left foot. He
has a beautiful wide swing, the hands being excep-

258 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

tionally high at the top of the swing, which may
account for the tremendous power of recovery, which
served him so well in his memorable match with Mr.
Maxwell at Muirfield in 1903. It is a great pity that
he can so seldom take part in the important events.

Mr. J. B. Pease is another example of the square
stance and ball opposite left foot style. He relies
on a pull for his length, but is straighter, though not
quite as long, as Mr. de Zoete, the result probably of
the three-quarter swing he contents himself with.
He can always be relied on to give his opponent a
very hard run for his money, as Mr. Ball can testify,
when he met him in the last championship at Hoylake.
He appears to play nearly all his shots with the same
stance and swing.

Of the younger generation there is no more promis-
ing player than Mr. L. 0. Munn, who is indubitably
the finest golfer that Ireland has yet produced. To
win the Irish championship three times running is
a great feat, and stamps him as possessing not only
the skill, but also the temperament of a great match
player. I should say that Mr. Munn is the finest
exponent of wooden club play to be found in the
amateur ranks. He drives very far and straight with
an exceptionally graceful and easy swing, and his
second shots are every whit as good as his tee-shots.

Mr. J. Robertson Durham is a very promising young
player, who also excels with wooden clubs. His carry
is prodigious, but he hits rather too high a ball
against a head wind. His run of success at Gullane
and Luffness, where he plays most of his golf, has been

MEN OF GENIUS 259

quite extraordinary. His swing is inclined to be of
the ‘headsman* type, and is not by any means a
long one.

Mention of East Lothian courses brings to mind the
many fine players who learnt or played most of their
golf in this ‘ holy land of golf.’ Twenty years ago
Mr. A. M. Ross’s name was one to conjure with. A
typically correct and orthodox player, he won
innumerable medals in the North Berwick-Gullane
district. His putting was remarkable as much for
its deadliness as for the variety of clubs he employed,
varying from the traditional wooden weapon to a
long shafted driving-mashie, which he held at the
extreme end.

Mr. J. R. Gairdner has a splendid record at North
Berwick. He is a very steady, consistent player,
with a peculiarly open stance, the ball being nearly
opposite the right foot.

The brothers Hunter, too, learnt their golf at North
Berwick, and in addition to successes in East Lothian,
they have both won the autumn medal of the Royal
and Ancient Club, Mr. Norman Hunter’s 74 being still
the amateur record, though others have succeeded in
equalling it. They were very conspicuous in ‘Varsity
golf, Mr. Mansfield Hunter captaining probably the
strongest University team which ever took the field.
He is a very pretty player, especially good with the
mashie. His brother combines great power with an
exceptionally good short game, and has certainly not
had his fair share of luck as yet in important events.

The Martin Smith brothers have also played much

260 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

golf at North Berwick, and have scored many
successes there.

Mr. Everard Martin Smith is one of the most brilliant
exponents in the amateur ranks. He has twice equalled
the record score of 73 in medal play at North Berwick,
on one occasion in half a gale of wind, but he capped
all previous performances by his marvellous score of
68 in the second round of the St. George’s Cup in 1911.

Mr. Martin Smith sets himself a very high standard.
He expects to lay approaches dead and to hole long
putts, and was only living up to the tenets of his
creed on this occasion. He is a very pretty player
with a beautiful wrist action, his only fault being a
tendency to drop the right shoulder when he is a little
off colour.

Like their cousins the Martin Smiths, the Hambro
family are very famous in golf. Of all long drivers
Mr. Angus Hambro is in my opinion the longest, and
it is accomplished with a remarkably easy swing.
Although he is very tall and strong, the results which
he obtains from such a quiet swing, which is certainly
not a long one, are quite wonderful.

Mr. R. H. de Montmorency is another player who
accomplishes wonderful results with an even shorter
swing. A hard hitter at cricket and racquets, he
punches the golf-ball very far and straight, especially
with a short, heavy-headed cleek. He finishes with
his hands well out and away, though like his back
swing the finish is very much under control. He is
an adept at the so-called ‘ push-shot.’ Mr. Darwin
fails to see much similarity to the stroke as played

MEN OF GENIUS 261

by Vardon, but I think that this may be explained by
the fact that Mr. Montmorency picks the club up
very straight, whereas Vardon swings back with a
flatter sweep. It is a great pity that his duties at
Eton prevent him taking part in more important
competitions.

Mr. Gordon Lockhart has been well known for years
as one of the best players in the west of Scotland,
but he has hardly done himself justice in the
championship till 1911, when he reached the semi-
final, and with the exception of the winner, probably
played the best golf of the meeting. He makes full
use of his height and strength, and is a good iron
player and putter.

His frequent partner, Mr. R. Andrew, was also a
beautiful golfer, with a very finished style. He has
recently joined the professional ranks in America,
where his many friends will wish him all success.
Another prominent west of Scotland player, Mr. A. R.
Aitken, has not taken part in the championships the
last two years. His best performance was reaching
the semi-final in 1905.

To survive many rounds of the amateur champion-
ship, it is absolutely necessary to putt well, and Mr.
C. C. Aylmer certainly did not lose sight of this fact
when he reached the final at Hoylake in 1909. He is
a very neat player, and seems to have lengthened his
driving considerably of late.

Mr. L. B. Stevens leapt into sudden prominence at
Prestwick in 1911 by reaching the semi-final, and, but
for an unfortunate misunderstanding with respect

262 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

to a local rule, might have attained even higher
honours. He is a powerful player, apparently blessed
with a singularly cheerful temperament.

Mr. J. L. C. Jenkins has played very good golf for
years, but he certainly never played better than he
did in the amateur championship at Prestwick in 1911,
when he eventually succumbed to the winner. He is
a beautiful driver, and always appears to be brimful
of confidence which after all is half the battle.

As a combination of brilliance and occasional
uncertainty, Mr. V. A. Pollock is an outstanding
example. When at his best, and players must surely
be judged by their best, he is a most dangerous player.
He grips the club with the right hand very much
under, and has an exceptionally flat swing, taking
the club low round the shoulder instead of over the
neck.

The Scotts are another great golfing family. Mr.
Osmond Scott has not been so conspicuous since he
reached the final of the championship at Prestwick
in 1905, but his brother Michael sustained a great
reputation made in Australia by his fine play in the
open competition at Troon just before the amateur
championship, and again by reaching the final of the
Irish championship. He has not quite got his
brother’s beautiful style, but he is an eminently sound
and steady player.

Mr. Sidney Fry is a striking example of a man who
is pre-eminently good at one game, taking up golf
comparatively late in life with very marked success.
There seems to be some affinity between billiards and

MEN OF GENIUS 263

golf. Mr. Herbert Fowler is another fine exponent
of both games, and as a golfing architect is second to
none. Walton Heath is a striking testimony of his
constructive genius.

Mr. H. S. Colt is also a fine golfing architect, and is
a fine steady player too, with an extraordinary style
of putting, so well described by Mr. Darwin in his
remarks on that trying department of the game.

Mr. H. E. Taylor is a finalist in the amateur
championship, and a most consistent medal winner.
He has a fine free style, and knows the game
thoroughly. He is also a great judge of a club, and
must have the largest private collection in the world.

Space forbids me mentioning many another fine
player, such as Mr. Gillies, who is as successful a
golfer as he was an oar, Mr. Frank Mitchell, a great
exponent of spoon play and a marvellous putter,
Mr. Worthington, an ex-Irish champion, the brothers
Fairlie, Mr. Douglas Currie, Mr. Gordon Simpson,
Mr. A. C. Lincoln, and the brothers Ellis, both
beautiful players, but so seldom seen of late. But
this list is certainly not complete without the name of
Mr. Bernard Darwin, who not only represented England
for so many years in the international match, but
succeeded in reaching the ante-final of the amateur
championship at Muirfield in 1909, only to succumb to
the ultimate winner after a hard fight. As might be
expected from one who has obviously such profound
technical knowledge of the game, he is a very finished
golfer. I am certain that much may be learnt from
an intelligent study of the methods adopted by the

264 THE NEW BOOK OF GOLF

leading players, especially by the young golfer who has
already attained some measure of skill, and is really
desirous of improvement. The value of natural
gifts of eye and muscle is enormously increased by the
acquisition of a sound knowledge of the game.

NOTE BY THE EDITOR

IF only Captain Hutchison would have ventured on a
word of autobiography, as his own appraiser, how
much more pleasant and interesting it would be
perhaps, however, too much to ask of him. He was,
as indicated, the hero and the victim of those two
great strokes of Mr. Maxwell which won the latter
the amateur championship and lost it to Captain
Hutchison, who was one up with two to play finished
without fault and yet was beaten. Perhaps this was
the highest mark he ever touched, yet a year or so
previously it seemed impossible for Captain Hutchison to
go in for any scoring competition without winning it.
He is a fine cricketer and all-round athlete especially
a fine gymnast. I know no man who gets power into his
stroke so easily with so smooth a swing. He makes the
game look very easy, because each stroke seems done
without effort he almost seems to make it look too easy
to be interesting ; it is a triumph of the art that conceals
art it looks as if it were almost impossible for him to
miss a shot or even mishit the ball, and, in point of fact,
he hardly ever does. That sums him, the blameless
player to whom mistakes do not happen. Yet do not
think that it is not all the result of painful study. These
triumphs of apparent ease are won only by long labours
of love.

PART IV

FROM THE LADIES’ POINT OF VIEW

BY MRS. Koss (nee Miss MAY HEZLET)

c etc c <

MISS RAVENSCROFT
Open Lady Champion, 1912

[To face p. 267

FROM THE LADIES’ POINT OF VIEW

THE growth of women’s golf has been extraordinary.
As a recent writer put it, ‘Even twenty years ago a
woman walking in a London street, attired in short
tweed coat and skirt, thick boots and carrying her
bag of clubs, attracted much undesirable attention ;
but nowadays a whole team could walk down Bond
Street or Regent Street, and no notice would be taken.’
The fact that four hundred and nine women’s clubs
are affiliated to that flourishing institution, the
Ladies’ Golf Union, is a wonderful testimony to the
extent to which the game has been taken up by
women. There have long been periodicals which set
apart a considerable portion of their space for reports
and discussions of women’s golf. Recently a monthly
magazine has been started which is to be devoted
entirely to this subject. And the enthusiasm has
not been confined to the women of the British Isles.
Players from Australia, America, South Africa, Canada
and British Columbia have entered for the open
championship meetings. In France, Germany, Swit-
zerland and Italy a great many women are now
golfing, and the roll of players is increasing year by
year. That golfing terms are still a mystery to some
members of our sex appears from the following con-

267

268 FROM THE LADIES* POINT OF VIEW

versation overheard at a recent championship meeting :
First Girl : ‘ Who is the man that walks round with
the players ? ‘ Second Girl : ‘ That man ? Oh, he is
the stymie.’ But the game is rapidly becoming so
widely familiar as to make such instances of refreshing
innocence very rare.

We can claim for golf that of all games it is the most
suitable for women ; that it is beneficial both to mind
and body ; and that it provides interest and amuse-
ment for countless women who would otherwise be
leading bored and monotonous existences. It will be
seen, then, that the presentation of the woman’s point
of view in a book on golf needs no apology. Some
of the principles of the game are here set forth in
their special application to women’s play. Practical
experience is worth infinitely more than theoretical
knowledge, but there are times when such hints as
may be gathered from books can be very helpful.
And so we trust that those who read these pages may
glean some information which may help them in their
struggle to learn the finest game in the world.

CHAPTER I
DRIVING

IN no department of women’s golf has there been
more progress of late years than in the length of
distance attained with wooden clubs. In iron play
there is still much improvement to be desired, on the
greens very little change has been noticeable, but from
the tee the difference between the long player of
to-day and the long player of ten years ago is very
marked. And, indeed, the difference is not confined
to the exceptionally long players. The average woman
golfer of the present is a vastly superior driver to her
sister of the past. The introduction of rubber-cored
balls has probably had a good deal to do with the
matter, the improved physique of the modern athletic
girl may be in part responsible, but the change is
mainly due to the increased facilities women possess
for playing on long links.

To be able to drive well is usually the first ambition
of every beginner. The novice regards putting as a
very simple matter. The feat of sending the ball
flying through the air is much more attractive to her
than rolling it along the ground into the hole. The
progress of a golfer can be judged by a kind of inverse
ratio in this respect. While driving is thought to be

269

270 FROM THE LADIES’ POINT OF VIEW

everything and putting nothing, the beginner is in a
very raw condition ; when she realises that it is
necessary to pay even more attention to her short
game than to her tee-shots, she may be said to be
beginning to understand the science of golf. For
driving is the easiest part of the game, and putting
far the hardest.

There are two ways in which a beginner can learn
golf. One is to put herself into the hands of a good
professional and to work away under his tuition until
some proficiency has been attained. The other is
to fight the matter out by herself, by dint of
strenuous practice, the reading of books, and the
cultivation of an observant eye. The latter course
may lead to success, but it is the more difficult of the
two. Those who can obtain even a few good lessons
to form a basis for after practice, will find that there
are great advantages in doing so, and it will mean a
considerable shortening of the period of drudgery
through which all beginners must pass. The ideal
way in which to learn golf is to commence the game
at such an early age that the swing is picked up
naturally and with very little effort. Children’s
muscles and joints are so supple that they instinctively
adopt graceful attitudes and movements. But for
those who are not familiar with the links from child-
hood, the only road to success is by sheer hard work,
and the expenditure of much patience and perseverance.

The first thing for the beginner to do is to get clubs.
Here at once a problem presents itself. How many
clubs are necessary, and of what nature should they

DRIVING 271

be ? The answer to this question is very largely a
matter of s. d. The girl who is not obliged to
consider expense will start off happily with a bag full
of weapons ; her impecunious sister will content
herself with a few. The latter has really the best of
it. It is a great mistake to begin with too many
clubs. It only multiplies difficulties. Each club
requires a different method of play, therefore the
larger the number of clubs used, the more complicated
are the instructions which have to be assimilated by
the reeling brain of the beginner. The result is likely
to be hopeless bewilderment. The average golfer
possesses driver, brassey, spoon or cleek, iron, mashie,
niblick, and putter. Of these the three essential for
a beginner are driver, iron, and putter ; the rest can
be added gradually. These three clubs are normally
always in use. The game may be said to be founded
upon them, almost as the diapason stops are the
groundwork of organ playing.

It is always desirable that the player should feel
confidence in her clubs ; therefore she should select
them in accordance with her own individual taste.
Such quantities of good clubs of all descriptions are
poured upon the market nowadays that every one
can find what suits her. In a driver the chief thing to
aim at is good balance. For a beginner the face should
be laid back a little, and the shaft should not be
whippy, a whippy club being much more difficult to
control. It is wiser to avoid all exaggerations of
length, weight, or shape. The average club is the
best for the average novice, and it is time enough to

272 FROM THE LADIES’ POINT OF VIEW

indulge in eccentricities and fancies when proficiency
is attained.

A golf stroke may be divided into three principal
component parts, viz. swing, grip, stance. Theorists
can argue about a host of minor distinctions, but for
our present purpose it is better to stick to these
three divisions. There is a diversity of opinion
among authorities as to whether the grip and stance
should be taught before the swing is attempted, or
whether the first effort should be to attain some sort
of swing, leaving the grip and stance to be adjusted
afterwards. I am inclined to think that the grip
should be attended to first, then the swing, and lastly
the stance. The stance is the easiest problem of the
three to tackle, and may quite well be postponed.
The grip is bound to affect the swing, and if the
motions of the swing be learned with a wrong grip,
they will have to be learned all over again when the
grip has at length been corrected, with the result of
disheartening the beginner not a little.

The overlapping grip has come very much into
prominence of late years. I have never tried it, and
therefore do not feel justified in criticising its merits
or demerits. A great many people use it and swear
by it. The principle is that the little finger of the
right hand is placed on the top of the first finger of
the left hand, with the object of making the two
hands as nearly one as possible, and preventing the
right hand doing more than its proper share of the
work. Miss Cecil Leitch expresses the opinion that
few ladies are strong enough in the wrists to use this

DRIVING 273

grip through the green, although they may easily do
so on the putting-green. She does not use it herself,
nor do many of the leading women golfers. Mr.
Darwin advocates the ‘ go-as-you-please ‘ grip with
three provisoes. These three are :

1. That the hands should be held as near together

as possible.

2. That the knuckles of the left hand should be

turned perceptibly upward, though not to an
extent that will cramp the player.

3. That the handle of the club shall not be too

deeply embedded in the palm of the right hand,
nor held with that hand in too cast-iron a grip.
The left thumb may do what it pleases, but
the right thumb will be better round the handle
of the club than straight along it.

With the first two I fully concur, but from the
last, with all due deference, I differ slightly. I would
encourage my beginner to grip firmly and evenly with
both hands, and I would have her keep both her
thumbs down the shaft, not round it. This may be
merely a personal preference on my part, as I began
golf in that way myself, but I do think that a great
deal more control can be obtained over the club with
the thumbs down, and it is certainly easier to drive
straight with them down than round. A little length
may be lost, but in the first stages of golf length is
not the most important consideration. When grow-
ing power demands every facility of outlet, the change
of the position of the thumbs from down the shaft

274 FROM THE LADIES’ POINT OF VIEW

to round it can be effected with very little trouble.
The hands should be held so closely together that the
middle joint of the first finger of the left hand should
rest in the angle where the little finger of the right
hand joins the palm.

The second of Mr. Darwin’s provisoes is a very
important one. The beginner is very apt to grasp
the club in the fashion which comes most naturally,
namely, with the left-hand knuckles right under the
shaft. It is, however, impossible to swing correctly
with this grip, and the upward turn of the left knuckles
is one of the chief features of a correct grip. One other
remark that it will probably make matters easier not
to grasp the club at the extreme end of the handle
and then we come to the swing.

Of swings there are an endless variety. Neverthe-
less, in the essentials there are points of resemblance
between them all. For instance, with nearly all
good players the ball is swept away with the impact
of the face of the club, rather than hit away. Then
the pace with which the backward swing is taken is
always appreciably less than that with which the
down swing is brought forward. The latter is gradually
accelerated as the club nears the ball. In connection
with this the question of correct timing comes in,
but we will return to that subject later on. Thirdly,
the head is kept still, while the body turns on its axis,
the axis, roughly speaking, being the player’s waist
line. It is very necessary that these points should be
borne in mind, as they form the basis of all good golf.
In addition the beginner must remember, that in the

GRIP FOR DRIVING: THUMBS ROUND WRONG GRIP: AS SOMETIMES USED

BY BEGINNERS

GRIP WITH THUMBS DOWN

BACK VIEW OF GRIP : SHOWING HOW
CLOSE HANDS SHOULD BE TOGETHER

[To face p. 274

DRIVING 275

process of the up swing the face of the club should
be gradually turned away from the ball. How and
why this should be done is very minutely and
carefully explained in the chapter on * The Principles
of the Swing ‘ by Mr. Darwin. It will be found that
the turning away of the face of the club will necessitate
the turni