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There is a little tale I want to tell about that Championship, illustrating the old saying that golf is a very funny game, and giving some point to a recommendation that I shall have to make later on. Never in my life have I putted better than I did in those two rounds. If, when I had a putt the whole length of the green, I did not actually rattle it into the tin, I laid it stone dead on the lip of the hole; on no green did I take more than two putts. Yet in the various rounds I had played on several days before my putting had been very indifferent. How came this remarkable change? It seems to me that it was entirely due to a chance visit that I paid to Ben Sayers's shop when I was at North Berwick in the interval between tieing with Taylor and playing the deciding rounds. I told the clubmaker who was in charge that I was off my putting, and wanted a new putter. Hitherto I had been playing with one of the bent-necked variety. While I was looking about the shop my eye was attracted by an old cleek that lay in a corner--a light and neglected club, for which nobody seemed to have any use. The strange idea occurred to me that this would make a grand putter, and so I told the man to take out the old shaft and put a new and shorter one in, and when this process had been completed I determined to experiment with it in the play-off with Taylor. I fancied this new discovery of mine and had confidence in it, and that was why I got all those long putts down and achieved the golfer's greatest ambition. But though I keep it still and treasure it, I have never played with that putter since. It has done its duty.

I must tell just one other story concerning this Muirfield Championship. Among the favourites at the beginning of operations were Ben Sayers and Andrew Kirkaldy, and a victory on the part of either of them would have been most popular in the North, as it would have settled the cup on the other side of the Tweed. Ben was rather inclined to think his own prospects were good. Someone asked him the day before the meeting who was the most likely Champion. "Jist gie me a wun' an' I'll show ye wha'll be the Champion," he replied, and he had some reason for the implied confidence in himself, for he knew Muirfield very well, and no one had better knowledge of how to play the strokes properly there when there was a gale blowing over the course, and pulling and slicing were constantly required. But neither Ben nor Andrew was as successful as was wished, and not unnaturally they thought somewhat less of Muirfield than they had done before. Therefore it was not fair to ask Kirkaldy, after the competition had been completed, what he really considered to be the merits of the course. I was standing near him when a player came up and bluntly asked, "What d'ye think o' Muirfield now, Andrew?" Andrew's lip curled as he replied, "No for gowff ava'. Just an auld watter meedie. I'm gled I'm gaun hame." But the inquirer must needs ejaculate, "Hooch ay, she would be ferry coot whateffer if you had peen in Harry Fardon's shoes."

There was an exciting finish also to the 1898 Championship, which was held at Prestwick. The final struggle was left to Willie Park and myself, and at the end of the third round, when Willie was three strokes to the good, it seemed a very likely victory for him. In the last round I was playing a hole in front of him, and we were watching each other as cats watch mice the whole way round the links. I made a reckoning when we reached the turn that I had wiped out the three strokes deficit, and could now discuss the remainder of the game with Park without any sense of inferiority. I finished very steadily, and when Park stood on the last tee just as I had holed out, he was left to get a 3 at this eighteenth hole to tie. His drive was a beauty, and plop came the ball down to the corner of the green, making the 3 seem a certainty. An immense crowd pressed round the green to see these fateful putts, and in the excitement of the moment, I, the next most concerned man to Park himself, was elbowed out. I just saw his long putt roll up to within about a yard of the hole, which was much too dead for my liking. Then, while Park proceeded to carry out his ideas of accomplishing a certainty, I stood at the edge of the crowd, seeing nothing and feeling the most nervous and miserable man alive. Never while playing have I felt so uncomfortable as during those two or three minutes. After what seemed an eternity there rose from all round the ring one long disappointed "O-o-o-h!" I didn't stop to look at the ball, which was still outside the hole. I knew that I had won the Championship again, and so I hastened light-heartedly away. I must admit that Park was playing an exceedingly fine game at that time, and it was only the fact that I was probably playing as well as ever I did in my life that enabled me to get the better of him. The day after winning the Championship I gained the first prize in a tournament at the adjoining course of St. Nicholas, and thereafter I frequently took part in competitions, winning much more often than not.

But the most important event, and the biggest match I ever had with anyone, was my engagement with Willie Park, who, not altogether satisfied at having missed the Championship by a putt, challenged me to play him home and home matches, thirty-six holes each time, for ?100 a side. There was some difficulty in arranging final details, but eventually we agreed to play at North Berwick and Ganton, North Berwick first. I have never seen such a golfing crowd as there was at North Berwick the day we played there. All golfing Scotland seemed to be in attendance, and goodness knows how many people would have been watching the play if it had not happened that the lukewarm golfers went instead to Edinburgh to see the Prince of Wales, who was visiting the capital that day. As it was, there were fully seven thousand people on the links, and yet this huge crowd--surely one of the very biggest that have ever watched a golf match--was perfectly managed, and never in the least interfered with a single stroke made by either Park or myself. The arrangements, indeed, were admirable. In order to keep the crowd informed of the state of the game at each hole, two flags were made, one being white with a red "P" on it, and the other red with a "V" worked on in white. When Park won a hole the flag with his initial was hoisted, and the "V" was sent up when I won a hole, both flags being waved when it was a half. At each teeing ground a rope three hundred yards long was stretched, and fourteen constables and a like number of honorary officials took control of it. In order to prevent any inconvenience at the dyke on the course, a boarding, forty feet wide and fifty yards out of the line from the tee to the hole, was erected, so that the crowd could walk right over. Mr. C.C. Broadwood, the Ganton captain, acted as my referee, and Lieutenant "Freddy" Tait served in the same capacity on behalf of Park. One of the most laborious tasks was that undertaken by the two Messrs. Hunter, who acted as forecaddies, and did their work splendidly. In two practice rounds that I played before the great encounter opened I did 76 each time, and I felt very fit when we teed up on the eventful morning. And I played very steadily, too, though my putting was sometimes a little erratic, and Park is one of the greatest putters who have ever lived. The early part of the game was very extraordinary in that the first ten holes were halved in 4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 4. Then Park drew first blood, but in the end I finished two up on the day's play. When Park came to Ganton three weeks later, I beat him on the two matches by 11 up with 10 to play. Naturally he was disappointed, but he was very sportsmanlike. He was acknowledged to be the greatest match-player of his time. I do not care for myself to lay any more stress on the importance of this match, or of the value of my own achievement; but those who have taken up golf quite lately can have no conception of the stir that it caused. It was the event of my lifetime.

The remembrance of this encounter brings forward the question of big money matches generally, which several people have declared they would like to see renewed. Fifty years ago they were common enough, and there are great stories told of foursomes between Allan Robertson and Tom Morris on the one side and the brothers Dunn on the other for a stake of ?400, and so on. The sightseers of golf ask why there are no such matches now. I think it is because golf professionals have to work too hard for the money they earn, and they do not care for the idea of throwing it away again on a single match. They do not receive large "benefits" or gate money, as do professionals in other branches of sport. So they deem it best to be careful of their savings. Besides, such matches tend to create bad feeling among the players, and we professionals are such a happy family that we distrust any scheme with such a tendency. Moreover, golf at the present time is a delightfully pure game, so far as gambling is concerned--purer than most others--and such matches would very likely encourage the gambling idea. That would be a misfortune. I contend that after all, for the best and fairest and most interesting trial of strength there is nothing like a good tournament where each player has to test himself against all comers. Every man plays to win, the golf is generally good, and what more is wanted?

When I won the Championship again in the following year at Sandwich, my success was chiefly due to my brassy play, which was better than it ever was before or has been since. From my brassy strokes the ball was often enough laid dead near the hole; certainly my second shots were always the winning shots. The game seemed very easy to me then, and I gained the Championship for the third time with less difficulty than on either of the two previous occasions. In 1900 I made a long tour in America, and won the American Championship. Concerning these events I desire to write at some length in a later chapter. The greatest success which I have ever achieved in face of difficulties was when I again became Open Champion at Prestwick in 1903. For some time beforehand I had been feeling exceedingly unwell, and, as it appeared shortly afterwards, there was serious trouble brewing. During the play for the Championship I was not at all myself, and while I was making the last round I was repeatedly so faint that I thought it would be impossible for me to finish. However, when I holed my last putt I knew that I had won. My brother Tom was runner-up, six strokes behind, and, glad as I was of the distinction of having equalled the record of the two Morrises in having won the Championship four times, I could have wished, and did wish, that Tom had been the victor. In all the circumstances I was very much surprised that I did so well. The last day's work was an enormous strain, yet on the following day I played in a tournament at Irvine, won the first prize, and broke the record of the course. It is wonderful what golf can be played when one's mind is given to the task, whatever the adverse factors in the case may be.

However, these are the events of recent golfing history, and I have no desire to inflict upon my readers a narrative of any more of them. As nearly as I can reckon, I have up to date won the first prize in forty-eight first-class tournaments, and by being four times British Open Champion and once American have still that record to my credit. And I hope to play many of my best games in the future, for it takes longer to kill the golf in a man than it does to breed it.

THE WAY TO GOLF

The mistakes of the beginner--Too eager to play a round--Despair that follows--A settling down to mediocrity--All men may excel--The sorrows of a foozler--My advice--Three months' practice to begin with--The makings of a player--Good golf is best--How Mr. Balfour learned the game--A wise example--Go to the professional--The importance of beginning well--Practise with each club separately--Driver, brassy, cleek, iron, mashie, and putter--Into the hole at last--Master of a bag of clubs--The first match--How long drives are made--Why few good players are coming on--Golf is learned too casually.

There are different ways of learning to play the great game of golf, each of which enjoys its share of patronage. Here as elsewhere, there are, of course, the two broad divisions into which the methods of doing all things are in the first instance classed--the right way and the wrong way--and, generally speaking, the wrong way has proved the more popular and is accountable for much of the very bad golf that one sees almost every day upon the links. There are two mistakes to which the beginner is much addicted, and to them is due the unhappy circumstance that in so many cases he never gets his club handicap down to single figures. Before he has ever played golf in his life, but at that interesting period when he has made up his mind to do so, and has bought his first set of clubs, he is still inclined to make the same error that is made by so many people who know nothing of the game, and loftily remark that they do not want to know anything--that it is too absurdly simple to demand serious thought or attention, and can surely need no special pains in learning to play. Is not the ball quite still on the tee before you, and all that is necessary being to hit it, surely the rest is but a question of strength and accuracy of aim? Well, we need not waste time in discussing the opinions of the scoffers outside, or in submitting that there never was a game less easy to learn than golf. But the man who has been converted to golf most frequently has a vestige of this superstition of his heathen days lingering with him, and thus at the outset he is not inclined to waste any time, as he would say, in tuition, particularly as it happens that these new converts when quite fresh are invariably most delightfully enthusiastic. They have promised themselves a new sensation, and they are eager to get on to the links and see how much further than the two hundred yards that they have heard about they can drive at the first attempt or two. Then comes the inevitable disappointment, the despair, the inclination to give it up, and finally the utter abject despondency which represents the most miserable state on earth of the golfer, in which he must be closely watched lest he should commit murder upon the beautiful set of clubs of which at the beginning he was so proud, and which he spent his evenings in brightening to the degree that they resembled the family plate. Then after this passage through purgatory come the first gleams of hope, when two holes in succession have been done in only one over bogey, and a 24 handicap man has actually been beaten by 3 up and 2 to play--a conquest which, if it is the first one, is rarely forgotten in the golfer's lifetime. After that there is a steady settling down to mediocrity. There is afterwards only an occasional fit of despair, the game is for the most part thoroughly enjoyed, there are times when, after a round in which driving and putting have been rather better than usual, the golfer encourages himself over his cup of tea with the fancy that after all he may some day win a medal and become a senior; but in the main the conviction forces itself upon him that it is impossible that he can ever become a really fine player. He argues that this is not at all his own fault. He points out to himself that circumstances are too strong for him. He considers that he is not very young--at least not so young as many of the experts of his club who have been golfing ever since they were boys. His limbs have not that suppleness which makes the scratch player. His eye is not so keen as theirs. Besides, he is a business man who has to give up so much of his time to the earning of his daily bread that it is impossible he should ever devote himself to the game with that single-mindedness which alone can ensure proficiency. He must take himself as he finds himself, and be satisfied with his 18 handicap. These are the somewhat pathetic excuses that he makes in this mood of resignation. Of course he is wrong--wrong from the beginning to the end--but there is little satisfaction in that for the earnest lover of the game who would see all men excel, and who knows only too well that this failure is but a specimen of hundreds of his kind--good golfing lives thrown away, so to speak. If a man is not a cripple, if he suffers from no physical defect, there is no reason why he should not learn to play a good game of golf if he goes about it in the right way. There is indeed a one-armed golfer who plays a very fair game, and one may admit all these things without in any way suggesting that golf is not a game for the muscles and the nerves and all the best physical qualities of a well-grown man. No great amount of brute force is necessary, and fleetness of foot, which men lose as they grow old, is never wanted; but still golf is a game for manly men, and when they take it up they should strive to play it as it deserves to be played.

Now I know what severe temptation there will be to all beginners to disregard the advice that I am about to offer them; but before proceeding any further I will invite them to take the opinion of any old golfer who, chiefly through a careless beginning , has missed his way in the golfer's life, and is still plodding away as near the limit handicap as he was at the beginning. The beginner may perhaps be disposed to rely more upon the statement of this man of experience and disappointment than on that of the professional, who is too often suspected of having his own ends in view whenever he gives advice. Let the simple question be put to him whether, if he could be given the chance of doing it all over again from the beginning, he would not sacrifice the first three or six months of play to diligent study of the principles of the game, and the obtaining of some sort of mastery over each individual shot under the careful guidance of a skilled tutor, not attempting during this time a single complete round with all his clubs in action, and refusing all temptations to play a single match--whether he would not undergo this slow and perhaps somewhat tedious period of learning if he could be almost certain of being able at the end of it to play a really good game of golf, and now at this later period of his career to have a handicap much nearer the scratch mark than his existing one is to the border-line between the senior and the junior? I am confident that in the great majority of cases, looking back on his misspent golfing youth, he would answer that he would cheerfully do all this learning if he could begin again at the beginning. Now, of course, it is too late, for what is once learned can only with extreme difficulty be unlearned, and it is almost impossible to reform the bad style and the bad habits which have taken root and been cultivated in the course of many years; and if it were possible it would be far more difficult than it would have been to learn the game properly at the beginning.

My earnest advice to the beginner is to undergo this slow process of tuition for nothing less than three months, and preferably more. It is a very long time, I know, and it may seem painfully tedious work, simply knocking a ball backwards and forwards for all those months; but if he does not accept my suggestion he will have harder things to try his patience during many years afterwards, while, if he takes my advice, he may be down very near to scratch at the end of his first year, and he will be very thankful that he spent the period of probation as he did. He will constantly be giving a half to players who have been playing for more years than he has months, and he will be holding his own in the very best golfing company. He will be getting the finest delight out of the game that it is possible to get. It is said that the long handicap man gets as much pleasure out of the game as the short handicap man. As the former has never been a short handicap man he is evidently not qualified to judge. The scratch man, who has been through it all, would never change his scratch play for that of his old long-handicap days--at least I have never yet met the scratch man who would. No doubt the noble army of foozlers derive an immense amount of enjoyment from the practice of their game, and it is my earnest prayer that they may long continue to do so. It is one of the glorious advantages of golf that all, the skilled and the unskilled, can revel in its fascinations and mysteries; but there is no golfing delight so splendid as that which is obtained from playing the perfect game, or one which nearly approaches it. The next best thing to it is playing what one knows to be an improving game, however bad, and the golfer whose play has been incorrectly established has not often even the knowledge that his game is improving. He declares more often than not that it gets worse, and one is frequently inclined to believe him.

Now the middle-aged man may say that he is too old to go in for this sort of thing, that all he wants is a little fresh air and exercise, and as much enjoyment as he can get out of playing the game in just the same sort of way that the "other old crocks" do. He would rather play well, of course, if it were not too late to begin; but it is too late, and there is an end of it. That is the way in which he puts it. So large a proportion of our new converts to golf belong to this middle-aged class, that it is worth while giving a few special words of advice to them. Mr. Forty and Mr. Forty-Five, you are not a day too old, and I might even make scratch men of you, if I were to take you in hand and you did all the things I told you to do and for as long as I told you. Given fair circumstances, there is no reason why any man should despair of becoming either a scratch player or one who is somewhere very near it, and it is as easy to learn to play well as it is to learn to play badly.

So I advise every golfer to get hold of the game stroke by stroke, and never be too ambitious at the commencement. I have heard it stated on very good authority that when Mr. Balfour first began to play he submitted himself to very much the same process of tuition as that which I am about to advise, and that under the guidance of Tom Dunn he actually spent a miserable fortnight in bunkers only, learning how to get out of them from every possible position. The right honourable gentleman must have saved hundreds of strokes since then as the result of that splendid experience, trying as it must have been. He is in these days a very good and steady player, and he might be still better if parliamentary cares did not weigh so heavily upon him. I may humbly suggest that the way in which he began to play golf was characteristic of his wisdom.

Therefore, when the golfer has become possessed of his first set of clubs, let him proceed to the shop of a good professional player--presumably it will be the shop where he bought his clubs--and let him place himself unreservedly in the hands of this expert in the game. Most professionals are good players and good teachers, and the golfer cannot go far wrong in this matter if he allows himself to be guided by his own instincts. I say that he should place himself unreservedly in this man's hands; but in case it should be necessary I would make one exception to this stipulation. If he thinks well of my advice and desires to do the thing with the utmost thoroughness from the beginning, he may request that for the first lesson or two no ball may be put upon the ground at which to practise swings. The professional is sure to agree that this is the best way, though he encounters so few beginners who are prepared to make all the sacrifices that I have suggested, that he might have hesitated in recommending this course of procedure himself.

A golfer's swing is often made for good or ill in the first week of his experience. His first two days of practice may be of the greatest importance in fashioning his style. If, when he takes his first lesson or two and makes his first few swings, he has a ball on the ground before him which he is trying to hit, all his thoughts will be concentrated on what appears to him to be the necessity of hitting it--hitting it at any cost. No matter what he has been told about the way to swing, he will forget it all in this moment of anxiety, and swing anyhow. In such circumstances a really natural and proper swing is rarely accomplished, and, before the golfer is aware of the frightful injustice he has done himself, his future prospects will probably have been damaged. But if he has no ball before him he will surely learn to swing his club in exactly the way in which it ought to be swung. His whole mind will be concentrated upon getting every detail of the action properly regulated and fixed according to the advice of his tutor, and by the time he has had two lessons in this way he will have got so thoroughly into the natural swing, that when he comes to have a ball teed up in front of him he will unconsciously swing at it in the same manner as he did when it was absent, or nearly so. The natural swing, or some of its best features, will probably be there, although very likely they will be considerably distorted.

At the same time the young golfer must not imagine because he has mastered the proper swing when there is no ball before him, that he has overcome any considerable portion of the difficulties of golf, for even some of the very best players find that they can swing very much better without a ball than with one. However, he may now taste the sweet pleasure of driving a ball from the tee, or of doing his best with that object in view. His initial attempts may not be brilliant; it is more than likely that they will be sadly disappointing. He may take comfort from the fact that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they are so. But by and by a certain confidence will come, he will cease, under the wise advice of his tutor, to be so desperately anxious to hit the ball anyhow so long as he hits it, and then in due course the correctness of swing which he was taught in his first two days will assert itself, and the good clean-hit drives will come. There will be duffings and toppings and slicings, but one day there will be a long straight drive right away down the course, and the tyro will be told that the professional himself could not have done it better. This is one of the most pleasurable moments in life.

His system of practice thereafter should be upon the following lines. He should continue to practise diligently with his driver until he gets these good, long balls nearly every time, sternly resisting the temptation even to so much as look at any of the other nice new clubs that he has got in his bag, and whose mysteries he is exceedingly curious to investigate. It may take him a week or a fortnight or a month to master the driver; but he should do it before he gives a thought to any other club. When he can use the driver with confidence, he may take out his new brassy and go through the same process with that, until he feels that on a majority of occasions, from a fairly decent lie, he could depend upon making a respectable brassy shot. He will find unsuspected difficulties in the brassy, and in doing his best to overcome them he will probably lose to some extent the facility for driving which he had acquired. Therefore, when he has become a player with his brassy, he should devote a short space of time to getting back on to his drive. It will not take him long, and then he should take out both the clubs he has been practising with and hammer away at the two of them together, until after a large amount of extra practice he finds that he is fairly reliable in driving a ball from the tee to begin with, and putting in a creditable second shot with his brassy from the lie upon which he found his ball.

During this second stage of learning he must deny himself the pleasure of trying his iron clubs just as rigorously as he restrained himself from the brassy when he was practising drives only; but when the driver and the brassy are doing well, he may go forward with the cleek. He will not find this learning such dull work after all. There will be something new in store for him every week, and each new club as it is taken out of the bag will afford an entirely new set of experiences. After the driver and the brassy it will be like a new game when he comes to try cleek shots, and in the same way he will persevere with the cleek until it is evident that he really knows how to use it. The driver, the brassy, and the cleek may then be practised with on the same occasion, and if he has made the best use of his time and is an apt pupil, he will find himself now and then, with these three shots taken in turn, getting beyond the green at some of the longest holes. Next it will be the turn of the iron, and so in due season he will be able to practise with the driver, the brassy, the cleek, and the iron. The mashie will follow, and then the five of them together, and at last he may have an afternoon on the green trying his skill with a putter, and listening for the first time to the music of the ball--no such music as this to the golfer's ear, though it consists of but a single note--as it drops into the tin and is holed out at last.

He is at work now with all the clubs that are usually necessary to play a hole; but at the risk of seeming over careful I would warn him once more against going along too fast, and thinking that even at this stage he is able to embark on match play with all the days of studentship left behind. When he takes out his full set of clubs, he will find, in using them as occasion demands, that he is strangely erratic all of a sudden with one or two of them. Let him have half an hour's practice once more alone with these troublesome fellows until the old order of things has been restored. Let him treat all other offenders in the same manner. He must be determined that there shall not be a club in his bag that shall be allowed to play these tricks with him. Let one day's hard labour be the invariable penalty, until at last they are all obedient in his hands, and the joyful day comes when he feels that he can pick any tool out of his golfing bag and use it skilfully and well, and that after examining a ball in any lie, at any distance from the hole, or with any hazard before him, he knows exactly how it should be played, and feels that he has a very reasonable chance of playing it in that way and achieving the success that such a shot deserves. Such a stroke will not be brought off correctly every time; the golfer has not yet been born who always does the right thing in the right way. But the more one practises the more frequently will he succeed. Following Mr. Balfour's good example, the beginner may do worse than spend a few days trying the most difficult strokes he can discover on his links, for in actual play he will find himself in these difficult places often enough to begin with, and a little special study of such shots at the outset will prove a very valuable investment of time. The ball should be thrown down carelessly at different places, and should be played from the spot at which it settles, however uninviting that spot may be.

When he has secured a fair command over all his clubs, from the driver to the niblick, the golf student may play a round of the links; but he should do so only under the watchful eye of the professional, for he will find that in thus marching on from hole to hole, and perhaps getting a little excited now and then when he plays a hole more than usually well, it is only too easy to forget all the good methods in which he has been so carefully trained, and all the wise maxims he knows so well by heart that he could almost utter them in his sleep. Let him play a few rounds in this way, and in between them devote himself as assiduously as ever to practise with individual clubs, before he thinks of playing his first match. He must settle his game on a secure foundation before he measures his strength against an opponent, for unless it is thus safeguarded it is all too likely that it will crumble to ruins when the enemy is going strongly, and the novice feels, with a sense of dismay, that he is not by any means doing himself justice. Of course I am not suggesting that he should wait until he has advanced far towards perfection before he engages in his first match. When he has thoroughly grasped the principles and practice of the game, there is nothing like match play for proving his quality, but he should not be in haste thus to indulge himself. Any time from three to six months from the day when he first took a club in hand will be quite soon enough, and if he has been a careful student, and is in his first match not overcome with nerves, he should render a good account of himself and bring astonishment to the mind of his adversary when the latter is told that this is the first match of a lifetime.

During the preparatory period the golfer will be wise to limit his practices to three or four days a week. More than this will only tire him and will not be good for his game. I have only now to warn him against a constant attempt, natural but very harmful, to drive a much longer ball every time than was driven at the previous stroke. He must bring himself to understand that length comes only with experience, and that it is due to the swing becoming gradually more natural and more certain. He may see players on the links driving thirty or forty yards further than he has ever driven, and, wondering why, he is seized with a determination to hit harder, and then the old, old story of the foozled drive is told again. He forgets that these players are more experienced than he is, that their swing is more natural to them, and that they are more certain of it. In these circumstances the extra power which they put into their stroke is natural also. To give him an exact idea of what it is that he ought to be well satisfied with, I may say that the learner who finds that he is putting just two or three yards on to his drive every second week, may cease to worry about the future, for as surely as anything he will be a long driver in good time.

In the course of this volume there are several chapters describing the way in which the various strokes should be played, but I am no believer in learning golf from books alone. I do not think it likely that the professional teacher who is giving the pupil lessons will disagree with any of the chief points of the methods that I explain, and, read in conjunction with his frequent lessons at the beginning of his golfing career, and later on studied perhaps a little more closely and critically, I have hope that they will prove beneficial. At all events, as I have already suggested, in the following pages I teach the system which has won Championships for me, and I teach that system only.

It is perhaps too much to hope, after all, that any very large proportion of my readers will make up their minds to the self-sacrificing thoroughness which I have advocated, and undertake a careful preparation of from three to six months' duration before really attempting to play golf. If they all did so we should have some fine new players. It is because they do not learn to play in this way that so few good players are coming to the fore in these days. One is sometimes inclined to think that no new golfer of the first class has come forward during the last few years. In my opinion it is all due to the fact that nowadays they learn their game too casually.

THE CHOICE AND CARE OF CLUBS

Difficulties of choice--A long search for the best--Experiments with more than a hundred irons--Buy few clubs to begin with--Take the professional's advice--A preliminary set of six--Points of the driver--Scared wooden clubs are best--Disadvantages of the socket--Fancy faces--Short heads--Whip in the shaft--The question of weight--Match the brassy with the driver--Reserve clubs--Kinds of cleeks--Irons and mashies--The niblick--The putting problem--It is the man who putts and not the putter--Recent inventions--Short shafts for all clubs--Lengths and weights of those I use--Be careful of your clubs--Hints for preserving them.

The good golfer loves his clubs and takes a great and justifiable pride in them. He has many reasons for doing so. Golf clubs are not like most other implements that are used in sport. A man may go to a shop and pick out a cricket bat or a billiard cue with which he may be tolerably certain he will be able to play something approaching to his best game when he is in the mood for playing it. The acquaintance which is begun in the shop is complete a few days later. But a man may see a golf club which he strongly fancies and buy it, and yet find himself utterly incapable of using it to good advantage. He may purchase club after club, and still feel that there is something wanting in all of them, something which he cannot define but which he knows ought to exist if his own peculiar style of play is to be perfectly suited. Until he finds this club he is groping in the dark. One driver may be very much like another, and even to the practised eye two irons may be exactly similar; but with one the golfer may do himself justice, and with the other court constant failure. Therefore, the acquisition of a set of clubs, each one of which enjoys the complete confidence of its owner, is not the task of a week or even a year. There are some golfers who do not accomplish it in many years, and happy are they when at last they have done so. Then they have a very sincere attachment to each one of these instruments, that have been selected with so much difficulty. It is not always possible to give reasons for their excellence, for the subtle qualities of the clubs are not visible to the naked eye. Their owners only know that at last they have found the clubs that are the best for them, and that they will not part with them for any money--that is, if they are golfers of the true breed. In these days I always play with the same set of irons. They are of different makes, and to the average golfer they appear quite ordinary irons and very much like others of their class. But they are the results of trials and tests of more than one hundred clubs.

Therefore no golfer in his early days should run away with the idea that he is going to suit himself entirely with a set of clubs without much delay, and though his purse may be a small one, I feel obliged to suggest that money spent in the purchase of new clubs which he strongly fancies, during his first few years of play, is seldom wasted. Many of the new acquisitions may be condemned after a very short trial; but occasionally it will happen that a veritable treasure is discovered in this haphazard manner. With all these possibilities in view, the beginner, knowing nothing of golf, and being as yet without a style to suit or any peculiar tastes that have to be gratified, should restrain himself from the desire to be fully equipped with a "complete outfit" at the very beginning of his career. Let him buy as few clubs as possible, knowing that it is quite likely that not one of those which he purchases at this stage will hold a place in his bag a year or two later. As he can have no ideas at all upon the subject, he should leave the entire selection of his first bag to some competent adviser, and he will not generally find such an adviser behind the counter at a general athletic outfitting establishment in the town or city, which too often is the direction in which he takes his steps when he has decided to play the game. In these stores the old and practised golfer may often pick up a good club at a trifling cost; but the beginner would be more likely to furnish himself with a set which would be poor in themselves and quite unsuited for his purpose.

The proper place for him to go to is the professional's shop which is attached to the club of which he has become a member. Nearly all clubs have their own professionals, who are makers and sellers of clubs, and I know no professional who is not thoroughly conscientious in this part of his business. It pays him to give the completest satisfaction to his clients, and particularly to the members of his own club. This professional is also a first-class golfer, who knows all, or nearly all, that there is to be known about the game, and who in his time has had imposed upon him the difficult task of teaching hundreds of beginners their first steps in golf. Thus he knows better than any man the erratic tendencies of the golfing initiate and the best means of counteracting them. Experience has given him the faculty for sizing up the golfing points of the tyro almost at the first glance, and therefore he can supply him at the beginning with those clubs with which certainly he will have most chance of success. He will suit his height and his build and his reach, and he will take care that the clubs in the set which he makes up are in harmony with each other and will have that lie which will best suit the player who is to use them. And even though, when the beginner gathers knowledge of the game and finds out his own style--which neither he nor the professional can determine in advance--some of them may gradually become unsuitable to him, they are nevertheless likely to be in themselves good clubs.

Take the driver to begin with, and the preliminary word of advice that I have to offer concerning the choice of this club is at variance with the custom of the present moment, though I am confident that before long the golfing world will again come round to my view of the matter--not my view only, but that of many of the leading amateur and professional players. One of the problems which agitate the mind of the golf-club maker deals with the best and most effectual method of attaching the head of the club to the shaft. For a very long period this was done by what we call scaring or splicing, the neck of the club having a long bevel which was spliced with the shaft and bound round for several inches with black twine. Latterly, however, a new kind of club has become the fashion with all but the oldest and most experienced players, and it is called the socket driver. The continuation of the neck of this club is shorter than in the case of the spliced driver, and instead of there being any splicing at all, a hole is bored vertically into the end of the neck and the shaft fitted exactly into it, glued up, and finally bound round for less than an inch. This club certainly looks neater than the old-fashioned sort, and the man who is governed only by appearances might very easily imagine that it is really more of one piece than the other, that the union of the shaft with the head has less effect upon the play of the club, and that therefore it is better. But experience proves that this is not the case. What we want at this all-important part of the driver is spring and life. Anything in the nature of a deadness at this junction of the head with the shaft, which would, as it were, cut off the one from the other, is fatal to a good driver. I contend that the socket brings about this deadness in a far greater degree than does the splice. The scared or old-fashioned drivers have far more spring in them than the new ones, and it is my experience that I can constantly get a truer and a better ball with them. When the wood of the shaft and the wood of the neck are delicately tapered to suit each other, filed thin and carefully adjusted, wood to wood for several inches, and then glued and tightened up to each other with twine for several inches, there is no sharp join whatever but only such a gradual one as never makes itself felt in practice. Moreover, these clubs are more serviceable, and will stand much more wear and tear than those which are made with sockets. Sometimes they give trouble when the glue loosens, but the socketed club is much easier to break. On club links generally in these days you will probably see more socketed drivers and brassies than those that are spliced; but this is simply the result of a craze or fashion with which neat appearance has something to do; and if you desire to convince yourself that I am right, take note of the styles of the drivers used by the best players at the next first-class amateur or professional tournament that you witness. The men who are playing on these occasions are ripe with experience, and so long as they get the best results they do not care what their clubs look like.

The head of the club should be made of persimmon or dogwood--both very hard and full of driving power. Usually the bare face of such a club is good enough for contact with any ball on any tee, but the time will come when the golfer, developing innumerable fads and fancies, will reach the conclusion that he must have an artificial face of some kind fitted on at the place of contact with the ball. Or such an artificial face may become necessary by reason of the wear and tear on the face of the driver. Why forsake the old leather face? There is an idea abroad in these days that it is too soft and dead for the purposes of the new rubber-cored ball; and the impression that the latter likes the very hardest surface it is possible to apply to it has resulted in horn, vulcanite, and even steel faces being fitted to drivers and brassies. I do not think that in actual practice they are any better than leather, though some golfers may persuade themselves that they are. If a man, who is a good and steady driver, makes several drives from the tee with a club which has a leather face, and several more with another possessing a steel or vulcanite face, I am confident that he will on the average get at least as far with the leather as with the other, and I shall be surprised, if the test is fair and reliable, if he does not get further. I have leather faces on my drivers, and I think that latterly I have been driving further than I ever did. A point of objection to the harder surfaces, which at times is very serious, is that the ball is very much more liable to skid off them than off others, and thus the golfer may often blame himself for shots that look like a mixture of foozle and slice when the fault is not his at all, but that of the peculiarity of the club with which he is so much in love. On the other hand, it must be admitted that he scores over his opponent with the leather-faced club when the weather is wet, for the leather is then liable to soften and becomes very dead.

Never select a club because it has a long head, but let your preference be in favour of the shorter heads. The beginner, or the player of only moderate experience, puts it to himself that it is a very difficult thing always to strike the ball fairly on the face of the club, and that the longer the face is the more room he has for inaccuracy of his stroke. But he is wrong. Whatever the length of the face, unless the ball is hit fairly and squarely in the centre, it will not travel properly, and the effect is really worse when the point of contact is a little off the centre in a long-faced club than when it is the same distance removed from the centre of a short face. Moreover, despite this fact, which will soon become apparent to the golfer, the knowledge that he has a long-faced driver may very easily get him into a loose way of playing his tee shots. He may cease to regard exactness as indispensable, as it always is. The tendency of late years has been to make the heads of wooden clubs shorter and still shorter, and this tendency is well justified.

The question of the whip or suppleness of the shaft must generally be decided by individual style and preference; but I advise the beginner against purchasing a whippy driver to start with, whatever he may do later on. He should rather err on the side of stiffness. When a man is well on his drive, has a good style, and is getting a long ball from the tee every time, it is doubtless true that he obtains better results from a shaft with a little life in it than from a stiff one. But the advantage is not by any means so great as might be imagined, and many fine players drive their best balls with stiff clubs. It must always be remembered that when the stroke is not made perfectly there is a much greater tendency to slice with a supple shaft than with a stiff one, and the disadvantages of the former are especially pronounced on a windy day. It is all a matter of preference and predilection, and when these are absent the best thing to do is to strike the happy medium and select a shaft that is fairly supple but which still leaves you in the most perfect command of the head of the club, and not as if the latter were connected with your hands by nothing more than a slender rush.

Weight again is largely a matter of fancy, and there is no rule to the effect that a slender player should use a light club and one of powerful build a heavy one; indeed, one constantly finds the slim men employing the most ponderous drivers, as if, as it were, to make up for their own lightness, while heavy men will often prefer clubs that are like pen-holders to them. Once more I suggest the adoption of the medium as being generally the most satisfactory. I have a strong dislike to drivers that are unusually light, and I do not think that anyone can consistently get the best results from them. They entail too much swinging, and it is much harder to guide the club properly when the weight of the head cannot be felt. Of course a club that is strongly favoured by a golfer and suits him excellently in all respects save that it errs on the side of lightness, can easily be put right by the insertion of a little lead in the sole.

Little need be said in this place about the selection of the brassy. Whatever may be the amount of whip in the shaft of the driver, the brassy should not possess any undue suppleness, for it has heavier and rougher work to do than the club which is used for the tee shots, and there must be very little give in the stick if satisfactory results are to be obtained when the ball is lying at all heavily. The head and the face should be small; but in other respects the pattern of the driver should be closely adhered to, for it is one of the principles of my tuition that when the golfer takes his brassy in his hand to play his second shot, he should be brought to feel as nearly as possible that he is merely doing the drive over again. Many authorities recommend that the shaft of the brassy shall be an inch or so shorter than that of the driver; but I can see no necessity for its being shorter; and, on the other hand, for the reason I have just stated, I think it is eminently desirable that it should be exactly the same length. On this point I shall have more to say in another chapter. Care should be taken that both the brassy and the driver have exactly the same lie, that is to say, that when the soles of both clubs are laid quite flat upon the ground the shafts shall be projecting towards the golfer at precisely the same angle. If they have not the same lie, then, if the player takes up the same stance at the same distance from the ball when making a brassy shot as when he struck the ball from the tee with his driver, the sole of the club will not sweep evenly along the turf as it comes on to the ball, and the odds will be against a good shot being made.

I am a strong believer in having reserve drivers and brassies, even if one is only a very moderate golfer. Everybody knows what it is to suffer torture during the period when one is said to be "off his drive," and I think there is no remedy for this disease like a change of clubs. There may be nothing whatever the matter with the club you have been playing with, and which at one time gave you so much delight, but which now seems so utterly incapable of despatching a single good ball despite all the drastic alterations which you make in your methods. Of course it is not at all the fault of the club, but I think that nearly everybody gets more or less tired of playing with the same implement, and at length looks upon it with familiar contempt. The best thing to do in such circumstances is to give it a rest, and it will soon be discovered that absence makes the heart grow fonder in this matter as in so many others. But the reserve clubs which are taken out while the first string are resting should be in themselves good and almost as exactly suitable to the player's style as the others. It is a mistake to take up a club which has been regarded as a failure, and in which one has no confidence. Therefore, I suggest that so soon as the golfer has really found his style and is tolerably certain about it, and the exact kind of club that he likes best, he should fit himself up with both a spare driver and a spare brassy, and give them each a turn as occasion demands. It is hardly necessary to add that whenever an important game is being played, considerable wisdom will be exercised if the reserves are taken out in the bag along with the clubs with which it is intended to play, for though breakages are not matters of everyday occurrence, they do happen sometimes, and nothing would be more exasperating in such a contingency than the knowledge that for the rest of the game you would be obliged to play your tee shots with your brassy or your brassy shots with your cleek.

The driving cleek, for long shots, should have a fairly straight face with very little loft upon it. It should have a thick blade, should be fairly heavy, and its shaft should be stout and stiff. This makes a powerful club, with which some fine long work can be accomplished. I am inclined to think that one reason why so many players find it extremely difficult to get good work out of their cleeks, is that they use them with heads too thin and light. A large proportion of the cleeks one sees about are too delicate and ladylike. It is sometimes expected of a cleek that it will despatch a ball for, say, a hundred and sixty yards, and no club will do that, no matter how skilful the golfer who wields it may be, unless there is sufficient weight in it. A second cleek, which will be found in the bag of the experienced golfer, will have a thinner blade and much more loft upon it, but in other respects will be very much like the other one, though not nearly so heavy. This instrument is for the shorter cleek-shot distances, which are just so long that an iron cannot reach them.

There is great diversity in irons, and the player may be left in the first place in the hands of his professional adviser, and afterwards to his own taste, with the single hint from me that undue lightness should at all times be avoided. Of the two mashies which the complete golfer will carry out with him on to the links, one, for pitching the ball well up with very little run to follow, will have a deep face, will be of medium weight, and be very stiff in the shaft. I emphasise the deep face and the rigidity of the shaft. This mashie will also have plenty of loft upon it. The other one, for use chiefly in running up to the hole, will have a straighter face, but will otherwise be much the same. However, not all golfers consider two mashies to be necessary, and I myself depend chiefly upon one. Of the niblick it need only be said that it must be strong, heavy, and well lofted.

I have stated that the golfer may carry two putters in his bag; but I mean that he should do so only when he has a definite and distinct purpose for each of them, and I certainly do not advise his going from one kind to the other for the same sort of putt. There is great danger in such a practice. If he is doing very poor putting with one club, he will naturally fly for help to the other one, and the probability is that he will do just as badly with that. Then he returns to the first one, and again finds that his putts do not come off, and by this time he is in a hopeless quandary. If he has only one putter he will generally make some sort of a success of it if he can putt at all, and my private belief is that the putter itself has very little to do with the way in which a golfer putts. It is the man that counts and not the tool. I have tried all kinds of putters in my time, and have generally gone back to the plainest and simplest of all. I have occasionally used the aluminium putter. It has much to recommend it to those who like this style of implement, and Braid always does very well with it. The Travis or Schenectady putter, which was so popular for a short time after the Amateur Championship last year, owing to the American player having done such wonderful things with it, I do not succeed with. When I try to putt with it I cannot keep my eye away from its heel. But the fact is, as I have already indicated, that you can putt with anything if you hit the ball properly. Everything depends on that--hitting the ball properly--and no putter that was ever made will help you to hole out if you do not strike the ball exactly as it ought to be struck, while if you do so strike it, any putter will hole out for you. The philosophy of putting is simple, but is rarely appreciated. The search for the magic putter that will always pop the ball into the hole and leave the player nothing to do will go on for ever.

One other observation that I have to make on clubs in general is, that I think it is a mistake to have the shafts any longer than is absolutely necessary. Some golfers think that an iron or a cleek is just the right length for them when there are still a few inches of stick projecting inwards, towards their bodies, when they have made their grip. Why that spare stick? It cannot possibly be of any use, and may conceivably be harmful. It is surely better to have it cut off and then to grip the club at the end of the handle. A larger sense of power and control is obtained in this manner. My own clubs seem to most golfers who examine them to be on the short side, and this is a convenient opportunity for giving a few details concerning my favourites, which may prove of interest to the readers of these notes. I should prefix the statement with the observation that I am 5 feet 9-1/4 inches in height, and that normally I weigh 11-1/2 stones. Young players who might be inclined to adapt their clubs to my measurements should bear these factors in mind, though I seem to be of something like average height and build. Here, then, are the statistics of my bag:--

Club. Length. Weight. Driver 42 inches 12-3/4 oz. Brassy 42 " 12-1/2 " Driving mashie 38 " 14-1/2 " Driving cleek 37 " 13-1/2 " Light cleek 37 " 13-1/2 " Iron 35-1/2 " 15-1/4 " Mashie 36-1/2 " 15-1/4 " Niblick 37 " 19 " Putter 33-1/2 " 15 "

Each measurement was made from the heel to the end of the shaft.

I have two explanations to make concerning this list of dimensions. I have included the driving mashie, of which I have said nothing in this chapter. It is an alternative club, and it is better that it should be discussed exclusively in its proper place, which is when cleek shots are being considered. Again, on making a critical examination of these measurements, the golfer of a little experience will promptly ask why my mashie is an inch and a quarter longer than my iron. It is longer because one has sometimes to play high lofting shots over trees and the like, and in such cases the loft of the mashie is necessary and a considerable amount of power as well--hence the extra stick.

As I have said, the collection of a set of clubs that conform in essentials to their owner's ideal is a very slow and often an expensive process. A club that was bought in the shop for six shillings might have cost its owner six sovereigns when the many unsatisfactory and discarded articles that were bought while this one perfect gem was being searched for are taken into account. Therefore it behoves the man who is to any extent satisfied with his clubs to take a proper pride in them and look well after them. I like to see a golfer play with bright irons, and shafts that give evidence of tender and affectionate care. It jars upon one's nerves to see rusty irons and mashies which have evidently not been cleaned for months, and which are now past hope. Such a man does not deserve to have good clubs, nor to play good strokes with them. But many golfers, even when they have a tender and careful regard for the excellent merits of their favourites, seem to imagine that the beginning and end of their duty towards them is to keep their irons bright and free from the slightest semblance of rust. More often than not the shaft is never given a thought, and yet a perfect shaft that just suits the man who has to play with it is one of the rarest and most difficult things to discover. It would be difficult to replace it, and to keep it in its best condition it needs constant care and attention. An unreasoning golfer may play with his clubs on wet days, see that the irons are brightened afterwards, and store his collection in his locker without another thought concerning them. And then some time later when he is out on the links snap goes one of his shafts, and "Confound that rotten wood!" he exclaims. But it is not a case of rotten wood at all. When shafts are constantly allowed to get wet and are afterwards merely wiped with a rag and given no further attention, all the life dries out of the wood, and they are sure to break sooner or later. It should be your invariable practice, when you have been out on a wet day, first to see that your shafts are well dried and then to give them a thoroughly good oiling with linseed oil, applied with a rag kept specially for the purpose. This will keep them in excellent condition. The tops of the club heads may be oiled in the same way; but extreme care should be taken that not a drop of oil is allowed to touch the face of the wooden clubs. It would tend to open the grain, and then, when next you played in the wet, the damp would get inside the wood and cause it gradually to rot. I counsel all golfers when playing in wet weather to have covers or hoods attached to their bags, so that the heads of their instruments may always be kept in shelter. This will do much for their preservation, and at the same time add materially to the satisfaction of the player, for he can never feel that he has the means to do himself justice on the tee when the head of his driver is in a half soaked state. No player, whatever his abilities as a golfer, should refrain from exercising this precautionary measure because he has seen only the very best players doing so, and because he fancies it may be regarded by his friends as affectation. The fact that it is chiefly the best players who do these things only indicates that they know better than others what is due to their clubs and how to look after them. There is no affectation in copying their methods in this respect.

DRIVING--PRELIMINARIES

Advantage of a good drive--And the pleasure of it--More about the driver--Tee low--Why high tees are bad--The question of stance--Eccentricities and bad habits--Begin in good style--Measurements of the stance--The reason why--The grip of the club--My own method and its advantages--Two hands like one--Comparative tightness of the hands--Variations during the swing--Certain disadvantages of the two-V grip--Addressing the ball--Freaks of style--How they must be compensated for--Too much waggling--The point to look at--Not the top of the ball but the side of it.

It has been said that the amateur golfers of Great Britain are in these days suffering from a "debauchery of long driving." The general sense of Mr. Travis's remark is excellent, meaning that there is a tendency to regard a very long drive as almost everything in the playing of a hole, and to be utterly careless of straightness and the short game so long as the ball has been hit from the tee to the full extent of the golfer's power. A long drive is not by any means everything, and the young golfer should resist any inclination to strive for the 250-yard ball to the detriment or even the total neglect of other equally important, though perhaps less showy, considerations in the playing of a hole. But having said so much, and conveyed the solemn warning that is necessary, I am obliged to admit that the long driver has very full justification for himself, and that the wisely regulated ambition of the young player to be one is both natural and laudable. The long drive, as I say, is not everything; but to play well it is as necessary to make a good drive as to hole a short putt, or nearly so, and from the golfer who does not drive well a most marvellous excellence is required in the short game if he is to hold his own in good company, or ever be anything more than a long-handicap man. The good drive is the foundation of a good game, and just as one and one make two, so it follows that the man who drives the longer ball has the rest of the game made easier and more certain for him. This apart, there is no stroke in golf that gives the same amount of pleasure as does the perfect driving of the ball from the tee, none that makes the heart feel lighter, and none that seems to bring the glow of delight into the watching eye as this one does. The man who has never stood upon the tee with a sturdy rival near him and driven a perfect ball, the hands having followed well through and finished nicely up against the head, while the little white speck in the distance, after skimming the earth for a time, now rises and soars upwards, clearing all obstacles, and seeming to revel in its freedom and speed until at last it dips gracefully back to earth again--I say that the man who has not done this thing has missed one of the joys of life. I have heard the completest sportsmen say that there are very few things in the entire world of sport that can be compared with it, and none that is superior.

So now let us get on to our drive.

In the first place, the driver must be selected, and the hints I have already given upon the choice of clubs will serve tolerably well in this respect. Let it only be said again that the golfer should do his utmost to avoid extremes in length or shortness. One hears of the virtues of fishing-rod drivers, and the next day that certain great players display a tendency to shorten their clubs. There is nothing like the happy medium, which has proved its capability of getting the longest balls. The length of the club must, of course, vary according to the height of the player, for what would be a short driver for a six-foot man would almost be a fishing-rod to the diminutive person who stands but five feet high. Let the weight be medium also; but for reasons already stated do not let it err on the side of lightness. The shaft of the club should be of moderate suppleness. As I have said, if it is too whippy it may be hard to control, but if it is too stiff it leaves too much hard work to be done by the muscles of the golfer. Practising what I preach, my own drivers are carefully selected for this delicate medium of suppleness of shaft, and when a stick is found that is exactly perfect it is well worth great care for ever. Also I reiterate that the head of the club should not be too large; driving is not thereby made any easier, and carelessness is encouraged. The face should not be quite vertical: if it were, only the top edge and not the full face would be seen when the stance had been taken and the club head was resting upon the tee in its proper place. There must be just so much loft that the face can be seen when the golfer is ready and in position for the swing. But avoid having too much loft filed on the club as a fancied remedy for driving too low and getting into all the bunkers. You do not fail to get the ball up because there is not sufficient loft on the club, but because you are doing something wrong which can easily be remedied; while, on the other hand, be very careful of the fact that, as you add loft to the face of the driver so at the same time you are cutting off distance and losing both power and the delightful sense of it. When the weather is wet, it is a good plan to chalk the face of the club, as this counteracts the tendency of the ball to skid from it.

Tee the ball low, rejecting the very prevalent but erroneous idea that you are more certain of getting it away cleanly and well when it is poised high off the ground. The stroke that sweeps the ball well away from the low tee is the most natural and perfect, and it follows that the ball, properly driven from this low tee, is the best of all. Moreover, one is not so liable to get too much underneath the ball and make a feeble shot into the sky, which is one of the most exasperating forms of ineffectual effort in the whole range of golf. Another convincing argument in favour of the low tee is that it preserves a greater measure of similarity between the first shot and the second, helping to make the latter, with the brassy, almost a repetition of the first, and therefore simple and comparatively easy. If you make a high tee, when you come to play your second stroke with your brassy, you will be inclined to find fault with even the most perfect brassy lies--when the ball is so well held up by the blades of grass that the best possible shot with this far-sending club should be the result. If you are favoured with an ordinary brassy lie, you imagine the ball to be in a hole, exclaim that you are badly cupped, and call out vexatiously for an iron. This is the regular result of playing from a high tee, whereas, when the low one is systematically adopted, the difference between the play with the driver and with the brassy from a good lie is inconsiderable, the brassy is used more frequently, and the results are regularly better. As I have already suggested, one of the principles of my long game is to make the play with the brassy as nearly similar to that with the driver as possible, and a low tee is the first step in that direction.

There are wide variations in the stances adopted by different players, and extremes of one sort or another are usually the result of bad habits contracted in the early stages of initiation into the mysteries of the game. Sometimes the ball is seen opposite the toe of the left foot; at others it is far away to the right. Either of these players may get long balls constantly, but it is in spite of the stance and not because of it, for they are contending against a handicap all the time, and have unconsciously to introduce other mannerisms into their play to counteract the evil which a bad stance inevitably brings about. It is certain that if they had driven in the easier way from their youth upwards, they would in their golfing prime have been getting longer balls than those with which they are after all apparently satisfied. But I have already admitted generally, and here again admit in a specific instance, the dissatisfaction, and even danger, that is likely to accrue from an attempt to uproot a system of play which has been established in an individual for many years. One can only insist upon the necessity of starting well, and plead earnestly to any readers who may not yet be far advanced in their experience of the game, to see that their play is based on wise and sure foundations. There is nothing of my own discovery or invention in my stance for the drive. It is simply that which is theoretically and scientifically correct, being calculated, that is, to afford the greatest freedom of movement to the arms, legs, and body in the swinging of the club, so that the strength may be exerted to the fullest advantage at the right moment and continued in its effect upon the ball for the longest possible period.

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