The Complete Golfer
by Harry Vardon · English · Gutenberg #28107 · 618,282 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Complete Golfer
Author: Harry Vardon
Release date: February 17, 2009 [eBook #28107]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMPLETE GOLFER ***
Produced by Steven Gibbs, Greg Bergquist and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
THE COMPLETE GOLFER
THE
COMPLETE GOLFER
BY
HARRY VARDON
OPEN CHAMPION, 1896, 1898, 1899, 1903
AMERICAN CHAMPION, 1900
WITH SIXTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS
SECOND EDITION
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published June 1905_
_Second Edition June 1905_
PREFACE
Many times I have been strongly advised to write a book on golf, and now
I offer a volume to the great and increasing public who are devoted to
the game. So far as the instructional part of the book is concerned, I
may say that, while I have had the needs of the novice constantly in
mind, and have endeavoured to the best of my ability to put him on the
right road to success, I have also presented the full fruits of my
experience in regard to the fine points of the game, so that what I have
written may be of advantage to improving golfers of all degrees of
skill. There are some things in golf which cannot be explained in
writing, or for the matter of that even by practical demonstration on
the links. They come to the golfer only through instinct and experience.
But I am far from believing that, as is so often said, a player can
learn next to nothing from a book. If he goes about his golf in the
proper manner he can learn very much indeed. The services of a competent
tutor will be as necessary to him as ever, and I must not be understood
to suggest that this work can to any extent take the place of that
compulsory and most invaluable tuition. On the other hand, it is next to
impossible for a tutor to tell a pupil on the links everything about any
particular stroke while he is playing it, and if he could it would not
be remembered. Therefore I hope and think that, in conjunction with
careful coaching by those who are qualified for the task, and by
immediate and constant practice of the methods which I set forth, this
book may be of service to all who aspire to play a really good game. If
any player of the first degree of skill should take exception to any of
these methods, I have only one answer to make, and that is that, just
as they are explained in the following pages, they are precisely those
which helped me to win my five championships. These and no others I
practise every day upon the links. I attach great importance to the
photographs and the accompanying diagrams, the objects of which are
simplicity and lucidity. When a golfer is in difficulty with any
particular stroke--and the best of us are constantly in trouble with
some stroke or other--I think that a careful examination of the pictures
relating to that stroke will frequently put him right, while a glance at
the companion in the "How not to do it" series may reveal to him at once
the error into which he has fallen and which has hitherto defied
detection. All the illustrations in this volume have been prepared from
photographs of myself in the act of playing the different strokes on the
Totteridge links last autumn. Each stroke was carefully studied at the
time for absolute exactness, and the pictures now reproduced were
finally selected by me from about two hundred which were taken. In order
to obtain complete satisfaction, I found it necessary to have a few of
the negatives repeated after the winter had set in, and there was a
slight fall of snow the night before the morning appointed for the
purpose. I owe so much--everything--to the great game of golf, which I
love very dearly, and which I believe is without a superior for deep
human and sporting interest, that I shall feel very delighted if my
"Complete Golfer" is found of any benefit to others who play or are
about to play. I give my good wishes to every golfer, and express the
hope to each that he may one day regard himself as complete. I fear
that, in the playing sense, this is an impossible ideal. However, he may
in time be nearly "dead" in his "approach" to it.
I have specially to thank Mr. Henry Leach for the invaluable services he
has rendered to me in the preparation of the work
H.V.
TOTTERIDGE, _May 1905_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
GOLF AT HOME 1
The happy golfer--A beginning at Jersey--The Vardon family--An anxious
tutor--Golfers come to Grouville--A fine natural course--Initiation as a
caddie--Primitive golf--How we made our clubs--Matches in the
moonlight--Early progress--The study of methods--Not a single lesson--I
become a gardener--The advice of my employer--"Never give up golf"--A
nervous player to begin with--My first competition--My brother Tom
leaves home--He wins a prize at Musselburgh--I decide for
professionalism--An appointment at Ripon.
CHAPTER II
SOME REMINISCENCES 11
Not enough golf--"Reduced to cricket"--I move to Bury--A match with
Alexander Herd--No more nerves--Third place in an open competition--I
play for the Championship--A success at Portrush--Some conversation and
a match with Andrew Kirkaldy--Fifth for the Championship at
Sandwich--Second at the Deal tournament--Eighth in the Championship at
St. Andrews--I go to Ganton--An invitation to the south of France--The
Championship at Muirfield--An exciting finish--A stiff problem at the
last hole--I tie with Taylor--We play off, and I win the Championship--A
tale of a putter--Ben Sayers wants a "wun'"--What Andrew thought of
Muirfield--I win the Championship again at Prestwick--Willie Park as
runner-up--My great match with Park--Excellent arrangements--A welcome
victory--On money matches in general--My third Championship at
Sandwich--My fourth at Prestwick--Golf under difficulties.
CHAPTER III
THE WAY TO GOLF 25
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.
CHAPTER IV
THE CHOICE AND CARE OF CLUBS 37
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.
CHAPTER V
DRIVING--PRELIMINARIES 52
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.
CHAPTER VI
DRIVING--THE SWING OF THE CLUB 64
"Slow back"--The line of the club head in the upward swing--The golfer's
head must be kept rigid--The action of the wrists--Position at the top
of the swing--Movements of the arms--Pivoting of the body--No
swaying--Action of the feet and legs--Speed of the club during the
swing--The moment of impact--More about the wrists--No pure wrist shot
in golf--The follow-through--Timing of the body action--Arms and hands
high up at the finish--How bad drives are made--The causes of
slicing--When the ball is pulled--Misapprehensions as to slicing and
pulling--Dropping of the right shoulder--Its evil consequences--No trick
in long driving--Hit properly and hard--What is pressing and what is
not--Summary of the drive.
CHAPTER VII
BRASSY AND SPOON 78
Good strokes with the brassy--Play as with the driver--The points of the
brassy--The stance--Where and how to hit the ball--Playing from cuppy
lies--Jab strokes from badly-cupped lies--A difficult club to
master--The man with the spoon--The lie for the baffy--What it can and
cannot do--Character of the club--The stance--Tee shots with the
baffy--Iron clubs are better.
CHAPTER VIII
SPECIAL STROKES WITH WOODEN CLUBS 85
The master stroke in golf--Intentional pulling and slicing--The
contrariness of golf--When pulls and slices are needful--The stance for
the slice--The upward swing--How the slice is made--The short sliced
stroke--Great profits that result--Warnings against irregularities--How
to pull a ball--The way to stand--The work of the right hand--A feature
of the address--What makes a pull--Effect of wind on the flight of the
ball--Greatly exaggerated notions--How wind increases the effect of
slicing and pulling--Playing through a cross wind--The shot for a head
wind--A special way of hitting the ball--A long low flight--When the
wind comes from behind.
CHAPTER IX
THE CLEEK AND DRIVING MASHIE 98
A test of the golfer--The versatility of the cleek--Different kinds of
cleeks--Points of the driving mashie--Difficulty of continued success
with it--The cleek is more reliable--Ribbed faces for iron clubs--To
prevent skidding--The stance for an ordinary cleek shot--The
swing--Keeping control over the right shoulder--Advantages of the
three-quarter cleek shot--The push shot--My favourite stroke--The stance
and the swing--The way to hit the ball--Peculiar advantages of flight
from the push stroke--When it should not be attempted--The advantage of
short swings as against full swings with iron clubs--Playing for a low
ball against the wind--A particular stance--Comparisons of the different
cleek shots--General observations and recommendations--Mistakes made
with the cleek.
CHAPTER X
PLAY WITH THE IRON 112
The average player's favourite club--Fine work for the iron--Its
points--The right and the wrong time for play with it--Stance
measurements--A warning concerning the address--The cause of much bad
play with the iron--The swing--Half shots with the iron--The regulation
of power--Features of erratic play--Forced and checked swings--Common
causes of duffed strokes--Swings that are worthless.
CHAPTER XI
APPROACHING WITH THE MASHIE 118
The great advantage of good approach play--A fascinating
club--Characteristics of a good mashie--Different kinds of strokes with
it--No purely wrist shot--Stance and grip--Position of the body--No
pivoting on the left toe--The limit of distance--Avoid a full swing--The
half iron as against the full mashie--The swing--How not to loft--On
scooping the ball--Taking a divot--The running-up approach--A very
valuable stroke--The club to use--A tight grip with the right
hand--Peculiarities of the swing--The calculation of pitch and run--The
application of cut and spin--A stroke that is sometimes
necessary--Standing for a cut--Method of swinging and hitting the
ball--The chip on to the green--Points of the jigger.
CHAPTER XII
ON BEING BUNKERED 131
The philosopher in a bunker--On making certain of getting out--The folly
of trying for length--When to play back--The qualities of the
niblick--Stance and swing--How much sand to take--The time to press--No
follow-through in a bunker--Desperate cases--The brassy in a
bunker--Difficulties through prohibited grounding--Play straight when
length is imperative--Cutting with the niblick.
CHAPTER XIII
SIMPLE PUTTING 141
A game within another game--Putting is not to be taught--The advantage
of experience--Vexation of missing short putts--Some
anecdotes--Individuality in putting--The golfer's natural system--How to
find it--And when found make a note of it--The quality of instinct--All
sorts of putters--How I once putted for a Championship--The part that
the right hand plays--The manner of hitting the ball--On always being
up and "giving the hole a chance"--Easier to putt back after overrunning
than when short--The trouble of Tom Morris.
CHAPTER XIV
COMPLICATED PUTTS 150
Problems on undulating greens--The value of practice--Difficulties of
calculation--The cut stroke with the putter--How to make it--When it is
useful--Putting against a sideways slope--A straighter line for the
hole--Putting down a hill--Applying drag to the ball--The use of the
mashie on the putting-green--Stymies--When they are negotiable and when
not--The wisdom of playing for a half--Lofting over the stymie--The
run-through method--Running through the stymie--How to play the stroke,
and its advantages--Fast greens for fancy strokes--On gauging the speed
of a green.
CHAPTER XV
SOME GENERAL HINTS 160
Too much golf--Analysis of good strokes--One's attitude towards one's
opponent--Inaccurate counting of strokes--Tactics in match play--Slow
couples on the course--Asking for halves--On not holing out when the
half is given--Golfing attire--Braces better than belts--Shoes better
than boots--How the soles should be nailed--On counting your
strokes--Insisting on the rules--Play in frosty weather--Chalked faces
for wet days--Against gloves--Concerning clubs--When confidence in a
club is lost--Make up your mind about your shot--The golfer's
lunch--Keeping the eye on the ball--The life of a rubber-core--A clean
ball--The caddie's advice--Forebodings of failure--Experiments at the
wrong time--One kind of golf at a time--Bogey beaten, but how?--Tips for
tee shots--As to pressing--The short approach and the wayward
eye--Swinging too much--For those with defective sight--Your opponent's
caddie--Making holes in the bunkers--The golfer's first duty--Swinging
on the putting-greens--Practise difficult shots and not easy ones, etc.
CHAPTER XVI
COMPETITION PLAY 177
Its difficulties--Nerves are fatal--The philosophic spirit--Experience
and steadiness--The torn card--Too much hurry to give up--A story and a
moral--Indifference to your opponent's brilliance--Never slacken when
up--The best test of golf--If golf were always easy--Cautious play in
medal rounds--Risks to be taken--The bold game in match play--Studying
the course--Risks that are foolishly taken--New clubs in
competitions--On giving them a trial--No training necessary--As to the
pipe and glass--How to be at one's best and keenest--On playing in the
morning--In case of a late draw--Watch your opponents.
CHAPTER XVII
ON FOURSOMES 188
The four-ball foursome--Its inferiority to the old-fashioned game--The
case of the long-handicap man--Confusion on the greens--The man who
drives last--The old-fashioned two-ball foursome--Against too many
foursomes--Partners and each other--Fitting in their different
games--The man to oblige--The policy of the long-handicap man--How he
drove and missed in the good old days--On laying your partner a
stymie--A preliminary consideration of the round--Handicapping in
foursomes--A too delicate reckoning of strokes given and received--A
good foursome and the excitement thereof--A caddie killed and a hole
lost--A compliment to a golfer.
CHAPTER XVIII
GOLF FOR LADIES 198
As to its being a ladies' game--A sport of freedom--The lady on the
links--The American lady golfer--English ladies are improving--Where
they fail, and why--Good pupils--The same game as the man's--No short
swings for ladies--Clubs of too light weight--Their disadvantages--A
common fault with the sex--Bad backward swings--The lady who will find
out for herself--Foundations of a bad style--The way to success.
CHAPTER XIX
THE CONSTRUCTION OF COURSES 205
Necessity for thought and ingenuity--The long-handicap man's course--The
scratch player's--How good courses are made--The necessary land--A long
nine-hole course better than a short eighteen--The preliminary survey--A
patient study of possibilities--Stakes at the holes--Removal of natural
disadvantages--"Penny wise and pound foolish"--The selection of teeing
grounds--A few trial drives--The arrangement of long and short
holes--The best two-shot and three-shot holes--Bunkers and where to
place them--The class of player to cater for--The scratch man's
game--The shots to be punished--Bunkers down the sides--The best putting
greens--Two tees to each hole--Seaside courses.
CHAPTER XX
LINKS I HAVE PLAYED ON 219
Many first-class links--The best of all--Sandwich--Merits of the Royal
St. George's course--Punishments for faults and rewards for virtue--Not
a short course--The best hole--The Maiden--Other good holes--Prestwick
an excellent course--The third and the ninth holes--The finest hole
anywhere--Hoylake--Two or three tame holes--A means of improvement--Good
hazards and a premium on straight play--St. Andrews--Badly-placed
bunkers--A good second hole--The finest one-shot hole to be found
anywhere--An unfair hole--The best holes at Muirfield--Troon--North
Berwick--Cruden Bay--Dornoch--Machrihanish--A splendid course at Islay--The
most difficult hole I know--Gullane--Kilspindie--Luffness--Links in
Ireland--Portrush--Portmarnock--Dollymount--Lahinch--Newcastle--Welsh
courses--Ashburnham--Harlech--On the south and south-west coasts--The
rushes at Westward Ho!--Newquay--Good holes at Deal--Littlestone--Rye--The
advantage of Cromer--Brancaster--Hunstanton--Sheringham--Redcar--Seaton
Carew--St. Anne's--Formby--Wallasey--Inland
courses--Sunningdale--A splendid course--Another at Walton
Heath--Huntercombe--London links--Courses in the
country--Sheffield--Manchester--Huddersfield--"Inland" courses at the
seaside--A warning.
CHAPTER XXI
GOLF IN AMERICA 232
Good golf in the United States--My tour through the country--Mr.
Travis's victory in our Amateur Championship--Not a surprise--The man
who played the best golf--British amateurs must wake up--Other good
Americans will come--Our casual methods of learning golf--The American
system--My matches in the States--A good average--Driving well--Some
substantial victories--Some difficult matches--Course
records--Enthusiasm of the American crowds--The golf fever--The king of
baseball takes to golf--The American Open Championship--A hard fight
with J.H. Taylor--A welcome win--Curious experiences in Florida--Greens
without grass--The plague of locusts--Some injury to my game--"Mr.
Jones"--Fooling the caddies--Camping out on the links--Golf reporting in
America--Ingenious and good--Mistakes made by non-golfing
writers--Lipping the hole for a hundred dollars.
CHAPTER XXII
CONCERNING CADDIES 245
Varieties of caddies--Advice to a left-handed player--Cock-shots at
Ganton--Unearned increments--An offer to carry for the fun of the
thing--The caddie who knows too much--My ideal caddie--His points--The
girl caddie--A splendid type--Caddies' caustic humour--Some specimens of
it--Mr. Balfour's taste in caddies--When the caddie is too anxious--Good
human kindness--"Big Crawford"--"Lookin' aifter Maister Balfour"--An
ingenious claim--A salute for the Chief Secretary--A story of a
distressed clergyman--Sandy Smith--The clothes he wore--An excess of
zeal--The caddies' common-sense--When his lot is not a happy one.
CHAPTER XXIII
REFLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS 259
Good golf to come--Giants of the past--The amateurs of to-day--The
greatness of "Freddy" Tait--Modern professionals--Good sportsmen and
good friends--A misconception--The constant strain--How we always play
our best--Difficult tasks--No "close season" in golf--Spectators at big
matches--Certain anecdotes--Putting for applause--Shovelling from a
bunker--The greatest match I have ever played in--A curious incident--A
record in halves--A coincidence--The exasperation of Andrew--The coming
of spring--The joyful golfer.
APPENDIX (Rules of the Game) 267
INDEX 279
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PORTRAIT _Frontispiece_
PLATE PAGE
I. My set of clubs 48
II. The grip with the left hand 58
III. The overlapping grip 58
IV. The overlapping grip 58
V. The overlapping grip 58
VI. Driver and brassy. The stance 66
VII. Driver and brassy. Top of the swing 66
VIII. Driver and brassy. Top of the swing from behind 66
IX. Driver and brassy. Finish of the swing 66
X. How not to drive 72
XI. How not to drive 72
XII. How not to drive 72
XIII. How not to drive 72
XIV. Driver and brassy. Stance when playing for a slice 86
XV. Driver and brassy. Top of the swing when playing for a slice 86
XVI. Driver and brassy. Finish when playing for a slice 86
XVII. Driver and brassy. Playing for a pull. Stance 90
XVIII. Driver and brassy. Top of the swing when playing for a pull 90
XIX. Driver and brassy. Finish when playing for a pull 90
XX. Driver and brassy. Stance for a low ball against the wind 96
XXI. Driver and brassy. Stance for a high ball with the wind 96
XXII. Full shot with the cleek. Stance 102
XXIII. Full shot with the cleek. Top of the swing 102
XXIV. Full shot with the cleek. Finish 102
XXV. Full shot with the cleek. Finish 102
XXVI. The push shot with the cleek. Stance 106
XXVII. The push shot with the cleek. Top of the swing 106
XXVIII. The push shot with the cleek. Finish 106
XXIX. A low ball (against wind) with the cleek. Stance 106
XXX. A low ball (against wind) with the cleek. Top of the swing 106
XXXI. A low ball (against wind) with the cleek. Finish 106
XXXII. Faulty play with the cleek 110
XXXIII. Faulty play with the cleek 110
XXXIV. Faulty play with the cleek 110
XXXV. Faulty play with the cleek 110
XXXVI. Faulty play with the cleek 110
XXXVII. Full iron shot. Stance 114
XXXVIII. Full iron shot. Top of the swing 114
XXXIX. Full iron shot. Finish 114
XL. Play with the iron for a low ball (against wind). Stance 114
XLI. Play with the iron for a low ball (against wind). Top of the swing 114
XLII. Play with the iron for a low ball (against wind). Finish 114
XLIII. Mashie approach (pitch and run). Stance 122
XLIV. Mashie approach (pitch and run). Top of the swing 122
XLV. Mashie approach (pitch and run). Finish 122
XLVI. Mistakes with the mashie 122
XLVII. Mistakes with the mashie 122
XLVIII. Mistakes with the mashie 122
XLIX. Running-up approach with mashie or iron. Finish, with stance
also indicated 122
L. A cut approach with the mashie. Stance 122
LI. A cut approach with the mashie. Top of the swing 122
LII. A cut approach with the mashie. Finish 122
LIII. The niblick in a bunker. Top of an ordinary stroke when it is
intended to take much sand 136
LIV. "Well out!" Finish of an ordinary stroke in a bunker when
much sand is taken 136
LV. Another bunker stroke. Top of the swing when intending to
take the ball cleanly and with a little cut 136
LVI. Finish, after taking the ball cleanly from a bunker 136
LVII. Putting 146
LVIII. Putting 146
DIAGRAMS.
Trajectory of ball when a distant slice is required 89
Trajectory of ball in the case of a quick slice 90
Method and effect of pulling into a cross wind from the right 94
The push shot with the cleek 106
Putting with cut on a sloping green 154
Nails in golfing boots and shoes 167
Points to look at when addressing the ball 170
THE COMPLETE GOLFER
CHAPTER I
GOLF AT HOME
The happy golfer--A beginning at Jersey--The Vardon family--An
anxious tutor--Golfers come to Grouville--A fine natural
course--Initiation as a caddie--Primitive golf--How we made our
clubs--Matches in the moonlight--Early progress--The study of
methods--Not a single lesson--I become a gardener--The advice of my
employer--"Never give up golf"--A nervous player to begin with--My
first competition--My brother Tom leaves home--He wins a prize at
Musselburgh--I decide for professionalism--An appointment at Ripon.
I have sometimes heard good golfers sigh regretfully, after holing out
on the eighteenth green, that in the best of circumstances as to health
and duration of life they cannot hope for more than another twenty, or
thirty, or forty years of golf, and they are then very likely inclined
to be a little bitter about the good years of their youth that they may
have "wasted" at some other less fascinating sport. When the golfer's
mind turns to reflections such as these, you may depend upon it that it
has been one of those days when everything has gone right and nothing
wrong, and the supreme joy of life has been experienced on the links.
The little white ball has seemed possessed of a soul--a soul full of
kindness and the desire for doing good. The clubs have seemed endowed
with some subtle qualities that had rarely been discovered in them
before. Their lie, their balance, their whip, have appeared to reach the
ideal, and such command has been felt over them as over a dissecting
instrument in the hands of a skilful surgeon. The sun has been shining
and the atmosphere has sparkled when, flicked cleanly from the tee, the
rubber-cored ball has been sent singing through the air. The drives have
all been long and straight, the brassy shots well up, the approaches
mostly dead, and the putts have taken the true line to the tin. Hole
after hole has been done in bogey, and here and there the common enemy
has been beaten by a stroke. Perhaps the result is a record round, and,
so great is the enthusiasm for the game at this moment, that it is
regarded as a great misfortune that the sun has set and there is no more
light left for play. These are the times when the golfer's pulse beats
strong, and he feels the remorse of the man with the misspent youth
because he was grown up and his limbs were setting before ever he teed a
ball.
Well, at least I can say that I have not missed much of the game that I
love with a great fondness, for I played a kind of prehistoric golf when
I was a bad boy of seven, and off and on I have played it ever since. It
was fortunate for me that the common land at Jersey was years ago the
ideal thing for a golfing links, and that golfers from abroad found out
its secret, as they always do. If they had failed to do so in this case,
I might still have been spending my life in horticultural pursuits. For
I was born (on May 9, 1870) and bred in Jersey, at that little place
called Grouville, which is no more than a collection of scattered
cottages and farmhouses a few miles from St. Heliers. Both my parents
were natives of Jersey, and my father, who was seventy-four on the 5th
of last November, has been a gardener there all his life, holding the
proud record of having changed his place of employment only once during
the whole period. There was a big family of us--six boys and two
girls--and all, except one of my sisters, are still alive. My brothers
were George, Phil, Edward, Tom, and Fred, and I came fourth down the
list, after Edward. As most golfers know, my brother Tom, to whom I owe
very much, is now the professional at the Royal St. George's Club at
Sandwich, while Fred is a professional in the Isle of Man. In due course
we all went to the little village school; but I fear, from all that I
can remember, and from what I have been told, that knowledge had little
attraction for me in those days, and I know that I very often played
truant, sometimes for three weeks at a stretch. Consequently my old
schoolmaster, Mr. Boomer, had no particular reason to be proud of me at
that time, as he seems to have become since. He never enjoys a holiday
so much in these days as when he comes over from Jersey to see me play
for the Open Championship, as he does whenever the meeting is held at
Sandwich. But when I did win a Championship on that course, he was so
nervous and excited about my play and my prospects that he felt himself
unequal to watching me, and during most of the time that I was doing my
four rounds he was sitting in a fretful state upon the seashore. I was a
thin and rather delicate boy with not much physical strength, but I was
as enthusiastic as the others in the games that were played at that
time, and my first ambition was to excel at cricket. A while afterwards
I became attached to football, and I retained some fondness for this
game long after I took up golf. Even after my golfing tour in America a
few years ago, when quite at my best, I captained the Ganton football
team and played regularly in its matches.
One day, when I was about seven years of age, a very shocking thing
happened at Grouville. All the people there lived a quiet, undisturbed
life, and had a very wholesome respect for the sanctity of the Sabbath
day. But of all days of the week it was a Sunday when a small party of
strange gentlemen made their appearance on the common land, and began to
survey and to mark out places for greens and tees. Then the story went
about that they were making preparations to play a game called golf.
That was enough to excite the wrathful indignation of all the
tenant-farmers round about, and without delay they began to think out
means for expelling these trespassers from the common land. A tale of
indignation spread through Grouville, and these golfers, of whom I
remember that Mr. Brewster was one, were not at first regarded in the
light of friendship. But they soon made their position secure by
obtaining all necessary authority and permission for what they were
about to do from the constable of the parish, and from that day we had
to resign ourselves to the fact that a new feature had entered into the
quiet life of Jersey. The little party went ahead with the marking out
of their course, though indeed the natural state of the place was so
perfect from the golfer's point of view that very little work was
necessary, and no first-class golf links was ever made more easily.
There were sand and other natural hazards everywhere, the grass was
short and springy just as it is on all good sea-coast links, and all
that it was necessary to do was to put a flag down where each hole was
going to be, and run the mower and the roller over the space selected
for the putting green. Rooms were rented at a little inn hard by, which
was forthwith rechristened the Golf Inn, and the headquarters of the
Jersey golfers are still at the same place, though a large club-room has
been added. That was the beginning of the Royal Jersey Golf Club. The
links as they were when they were first completed were really
excellent--much better than they are to-day, for since then, in order to
prevent the sand being blown all over the course by the strong winds
which sweep across the island, the bunkers have in most cases been
filled with clay, which has to a great extent spoiled them.
When everything was ready, more of these golfers came across from
England to play this new game which we had never seen before, and all
the youngsters of the locality were enticed into their service to carry
their clubs. I was among the number, and that was my first introduction
to the game. We did not think much of it upon our first experience; but
after we had carried for a few rounds we came to see that it contained
more than we had imagined. Then we were seized with a desire to play it
ourselves, and discover what we could do. But we had no links to play
upon, no clubs, no balls, and no money. However, we surmounted all these
difficulties. To begin with, we laid out a special course of our very
own. It consisted of only four holes, and each one of them was only
about fifty yards long, but for boys of seven that was quite enough. We
made our teeing grounds, smoothed out the greens, and, so far as this
part of the business was concerned, we were soon ready for play. There
was no difficulty about balls, for we decided at once that the most
suitable article for us, in the absence of real gutties, was the big
white marble which we called a taw, and which was about half the size of
an ordinary golf ball, or perhaps a little less than that. But there was
some anxiety in our juvenile minds when the question of clubs came to be
considered, and I think we deserved credit for the manner in which we
disposed of it. It was apparent that nothing would be satisfactory
except a club fashioned on the lines of a real golf club, and that to
procure anything of the sort we should have to make it ourselves.
Therefore, after several experiments, we decided that we would use for
the purpose the hard wood of the tree which we called the lady oak. To
make a club we cut a thick branch from the tree, sawed off a few inches
from it, and then trimmed this piece so that it had a faint resemblance
to the heads of the drivers we had seen used on the links. Any elaborate
splicing operations were out of the question, so we agreed that we must
bore a hole in the centre of the head. The shaft sticks that we chose
and trimmed were made of good thorn, white or black, and when we had
prepared them to our satisfaction we put the poker in the fire and made
it red hot, then bored a hole with it through the head, and tightened
the shaft with wedges until the club was complete. With this primitive
driver we could get what was for our diminutive limbs a really long
ball, or a long taw as one should say. In these later days a patent has
been taken out for drivers with the shaft let into the head, which are
to all intents and purposes the same in principle as those which we used
to make at Grouville.
By and by some of us became quite expert at the making of these clubs,
and we set ourselves to discover ways and means of improving them. The
greater elaboration of such brassies as we had seen impressed us, and we
also found some trouble with our oak heads in that, being green, they
were rather inclined to chip and crack. Ultimately we decided to sheathe
the heads entirely with tin. It was not an easy thing to make a good job
of this, and we were further troubled by the circumstance that our
respective fathers had no sympathy with us, and declined upon any
account to lend us their tools. Consequently we had no option but to
wait until the coast was clear and then surreptitiously borrow the tools
for an hour or two. We called these tin-plated drivers our brassies, and
they were certainly an improvement on our original clubs. Occasionally a
club was made in this manner which exhibited properties superior to
those possessed by any other, as clubs will do even to-day. Forthwith
the reputation of the maker of this club went up by leaps and bounds,
and he was petitioned by others to make clubs for them, a heavy price in
taws and marbles being offered for the service. The club that had
created all this stir would change hands two or three times at an
increasing price until it required the payment of four or five dozen
marbles to become possessed of it. But the boy who owned the treasure
was looked upon as the lord of the manor, and odds were demanded of him
in the matches that we played.
We practised our very elementary kind of golf whenever we could, and
were soon enthusiastic. I remember particularly that many of our best
matches were played in the moonlight. The moon seemed to shine more
clearly at Jersey than in England, and we could see splendidly. Four of
us would go out together on a moonlight night to play, and our little
competition was arranged on the medal system by scores. Usually a few
marbles were at stake. To prevent the loss of taws one of us was sent
ahead to watch for their coming and listen for the faint thud of their
fall, while the other three drove from the tee. Then the three came
forward while the watcher went back to drive, and I am sorry to say that
our keenness in those days led us to disregard certain principles of the
sportsman's code of honour which we appreciated better as we grew up.
What I mean is that the watcher was often handicapped in a way that he
little suspected, for when he went back to the tee, and we went forward
and found that our balls were not always so well up as we had hoped, we
gave them a gentle kick forwards; for in the dim light we were able to
do this unknown to each other. But in legitimate play we often got a 3
at these fifty-yard holes, and with our home-made clubs, our little
white taws, our lack of knowledge, and our physical feebleness all taken
into consideration, I say we have often done less creditable things
since then.
After such beginnings, we progressed very well. We began to carry more
and more for the golfers who came to Grouville; we found or were given
real balls that took the place of the taws, and then a damaged club
occasionally came our way, and was repaired and brought into our own
service. Usually it was necessary to put in new shafts, and so we burnt
holes in the heads and put in the sticks, as we did with clubs of our
own make; but these converted clubs were disappointing in the matter of
durability. It happened once or twice that golfers for whom we had been
carrying gave us an undamaged club as a reward for our enthusiasm, and
we were greatly excited and encouraged when such a thing happened. I
used to carry clubs about twice a week. I remember that Mr. Molesworth
and Dr. Purves, both well known in the golfing world, were two players
for whom I very often carried, and only the other day when I saw the
former at the Professional Tournament at Richmond, watching the play, I
was able to remind him of those times and of a particular shot he once
played. We young caddies were very eager to learn the game thoroughly,
and we were in the habit of watching these golfers very closely,
comparing their styles, and then copying anything from them that seemed
to take our fancy. I may say at once, in reply to a question that I am
often asked, and which perhaps my present readers may themselves be
inclined to put, that I have never in my life taken a single golfing
lesson from anyone, and that whatever style I may possess is purely the
result of watching others play and copying them when I thought they made
a stroke in a particularly easy and satisfactory manner. It was my habit
for very many years after these early days, until in fact I had won the
Open Championship, to study the methods of good golfers in this way, and
there are few from whom one is not able to learn something. I cannot say
that the play of any one man particularly impressed me; I cannot point
to any player, past or present, and declare that I modelled my style on
his. It seemed to me that I took a little from one and a little from
another until my swing was a composition of the swings of several
players, and my approach shots likewise were of a very mixed parentage.
Of course when I took a hint from the play of anyone I had been watching
it required much subsequent practice properly to weld it into my own
system; but I think that this close watching of good players, and the
borrowing from their styles of all information that you think is good,
and then constantly practising the new idea yourself, is an excellent
method of improving your golf, though I do not recommend it as the sole
method of learning, despite the success which I personally have
achieved. However, this is a matter for later consideration.
As we were such a large family and my father's means were very limited,
there was the necessity which is common in such cases for all of the
boys to turn out early in life and do something towards helping the
others, and accordingly I went to work when I was thirteen. Some time
afterwards I became gardener to the late Major Spofforth of Beauview,
who was himself a very keen golfer, and who occasionally gave me some of
his old clubs. Now and then, when he was in want of a partner, he used
to take me out to play with him, and I shall never forget the words he
spoke to me one day after we had played one of these matches. "Henry, my
boy," he said, "take my advice, and never give up golf. It may be very
useful to you some day." Certainly his words came true. I can only
remember about these games that I was in the habit of getting very
nervous over them, much more so than I did later on when I played
matches of far more consequence. I joined a working men's golf club that
had been formed, and it was through this agency that I won my first
prize. A vase was offered for competition among the members, the
conditions being that six medal rounds were to be played at the rate of
one a month. When we had played five, I was leading by so very many
strokes that it was next to impossible for any of the others to catch me
up, and as just then my time came for leaving home and going out into
the greater world of golf, the committee kindly gave me permission to
play my last round two or three weeks before the proper time. It removed
all doubt as to the destination of the prize, which has still one of the
most honoured places on my mantelpiece. At that time my handicap for
this club was plus 3, but that did not mean that I would have been plus
3 anywhere else. As a matter of fact, I should think I must have been
about 8 or 10.
By this time my younger brother Tom had already gone away to learn
club-making from Lowe at St. Anne's-on-Sea. He played very much the same
game of golf as I did at that time, and it was his venture and the
success that waited upon it that made me determine to strike out. While
Tom was at St. Anne's he went on a journey north to take part in a
tournament at Musselburgh, where he captured the second prize. Thereupon
I came to the conclusion that, if Tom could do that, then I too with a
little patience might do the same. Indeed, I was a very keen golfer just
then. At last Lowe was summoned to Lord Ripon's place at Ripon, near
Harrogate, to lay out a new nine-holes course, and Tom wrote to me
saying that they would be wanting a professional there, and if I desired
such an appointment I had better apply for it without delay. I did so,
and was engaged. I was twenty years of age when I left home to assume
these duties.
CHAPTER II
SOME REMINISCENCES
Not enough golf--"Reduced to cricket"--I move to Bury--A match with
Alexander Herd--No more nerves--Third place in an open
competition--I play for the Championship--A success at
Portrush--Some conversation and a match with Andrew Kirkaldy--Fifth
for the Championship at Sandwich--Second at the Deal
tournament--Eighth in the Championship at St. Andrews--I go to
Ganton--An invitation to the south of France--The Championship at
Muirfield--An exciting finish--A stiff problem at the last hole--I
tie with Taylor--We play off, and I win the Championship--A tale of
a putter--Ben Sayers wants a "wun'"--What Andrew thought of
Muirfield--I win the Championship again at Prestwick--Willie Park
as runner-up--My great match with Park--Excellent arrangements--A
welcome victory--On money matches in general--My third Championship
at Sandwich--My fourth at Prestwick--Golf under difficulties.
No true golfer is satisfied with a little of the game, if there is no
substantial reason why he should not have much of it. I was greenkeeper
as well as professional to the Studley Royal Golf Club, Ripon; but golf
did not seem to have taken a very deep root there up to that time. There
was so little of it played that I soon found time hang heavily upon my
hands, and in the summer I was reduced to playing cricket, and in fact
played more with the bat than I did with the driver. There were one or
two good players on the links occasionally, and now and then I had some
good games with visitors to the place. One day after such a match my
opponent remarked very seriously to me, "Harry, if you take my advice
you will get away from here as quickly as you can, as you don't get half
enough golf to bring you out." I took the advice very much to heart. I
was not unduly conceited about my golf in those days, and the
possibility of being Champion at some future time had taken no definite
shape in my mind; but I was naturally ambitious and disinclined to waste
any opportunities that might present themselves. So, when I saw that the
Bury Golf Club were advertising for a professional, I applied for the
post and got it. It was by no means a bad nine-holes course that I found
at Bury, and I was enabled to play much more golf than at Ripon, while
there were some very good amateurs there, Mr. S.F. Butcher being one of
the best. I was now beginning to play fairly well, and the first
professional match of my life was arranged for me, Alexander Herd of
Huddersfield being my opponent in this maiden effort, upon the result of
which a stake of a few pounds a side depended. Herd was by that time a
famous player and accomplishing some very fine golf, so that on paper at
all events the unknown Bury professional had no chance whatever. So
indeed it proved. It was fixed that we were to play thirty-six holes,
home and home, Herd having the privilege of playing on his own course
first. I forget how many he was up at Huddersfield, but it was so many
that I had practically no chance of wiping out the difference when I
brought my opponent to Bury, and in the end he won quite easily. "Sandy"
Herd, as we all call him, and I have had many great matches since then,
and many of them of far greater consequence than this, but I shall never
forget this beginning. Neither in those days, nor in the others that
soon followed, when it became clear that I had a chance of becoming
Champion, was I ever in the least troubled with nervousness. I was
completely cured of my early complaint. Moreover, I have not known what
it is to be nervous even in a Championship round when my fate depended
upon almost every stroke, and particularly on those at the last few
holes. The feeling that was always uppermost in my mind was that I had
everything to gain and nothing to lose. It is only when a man has
everything to lose and nothing to gain that he should become uneasy
about his game. When you have won a few prizes and there are critical
eyes upon you, there may be some excuse for nerves, but not before. All
young players should grasp the simple truth of this simple statement;
but it is surprising how many fail to do so. No stroke or game ever
seemed to cause me any anxiety in those young days, and my rapid success
may have been in a large measure due to this indifference.
In 1893 I decided that I would enter for the Open Championship, which in
that year was played for at Prestwick, and I went north in company with
my brother Tom, stopping on our way to take part in the tournament at
Kilmalcolm, which was attended by most of the other professionals. I did
fairly well in this, the first open competition for which I entered,
being bracketed with poor Hugh Kirkaldy for third place. But I failed in
the Championship competition, as, of course, I fully expected to do.
That was Willie Auchterlonie's year, and I was some way down the list. I
started in great style, and, though I broke down badly later on, there
was just the consolation left for me that after all I did better than my
partner, Willie Campbell.
There were some curious circumstances attending the first big success of
any kind that I achieved. This was at Portrush in Ireland, shortly after
the Championship meeting, and the competition was a professional
tournament. I was drawn against Andrew Kirkaldy in the first round, and
his brother Hugh was one of the next pair, so it seemed that the two
Kirkaldys would meet in the second round. Andrew assumed that that would
happen, as he had every right to do, and he was heard to remark that it
was rather hard luck that the brothers should be set against each other
in this manner so early in the competition. The night before the
match-play part of the business commenced, I was walking down one of the
streets of Portrush when I encountered Andrew himself, and in his own
blunt but good-humoured way he remarked, "Young laddie, d'ye think y're
gaun to tak the money awa' with ye? Ye've no chance, ye ken." I said
nothing in reply, because I felt that he spoke the truth. Next day a
heavy gale was blowing, and I started very cautiously. The first hole
was on the side of a hill, and when my ball lay a yard from the flag and
I had the next stroke for the hole, it was trembling in the wind and
threatening every moment to start rolling. So I waited for it to steady
itself, and my waiting exasperated Andrew to such an extent that at
length he exclaimed, "Man, d'ye ken I'm cauld? Are ye gaun to keep me
waiting here a' nicht?" Then I took the putt and missed it, so the hole
was halved. However, I set about my opponent after that, and had begun
to enjoy the game immensely by the time we reached the turn. At this
point two of the holes ran parallel to each other, and as we were
playing one of them we passed Hugh and his partner going up to the
other. "Man, Andrew, hoo's the game?" called out brother Hugh. "Man
alive, I'm five doon!" Andrew replied in tones of distress. "Ma
conscience!" muttered Hugh as he passed along. Andrew was more than five
down at the finish of that game, and in the second round I had the
satisfaction of removing the remaining member of the Kirkaldy family
from the competition, while in the semi-final I beat an old Open
Champion, D. Brown. But in the final, Herd defeated me on the last
green, and so I had to be content with the prize given for runner-up.
Shortly afterwards I won another prize in a tournament at Ilkley, this
time accounting for Herd as well as my brother Tom and many other
well-known players. Tom was professional at Ilkley, and the course there
was a very difficult nine holes.
I did better in the competition for the Open Championship in the
following year when the meeting was held at Sandwich, playing a
particularly good game on the second day, when my 80 and 81 were one of
the two lowest combined returns. At the finish I was fifth, and felt
very pleased to occupy the position, for the excellence of the golf that
I witnessed was a surprise to me. From Sandwich the professionals went
on to Deal, where a tournament was held, in which I managed to secure
second place. It was Herd who beat me once again. At St. Andrews in the
1895 Competition, I returned the lowest score in the first round, but
could only tie for the ninth place at the finish. My old friend, J.H.
Taylor, who made his first essay to capture the blue ribbon of golf at
Prestwick at the same time that I did, was the winner at both this and
the previous Championship meeting. A few months later I left Bury for
Ganton; Tom, who had been over there with some Ilkley players at the
Yorkshire meeting, having heard that they were in need of a new
professional, and written to me at once with advice to apply. Between
leaving Bury and going to Ganton I had three weeks of good golf at Pau,
in the south of France, the great and unexpected honour being paid me of
an invitation to form one of a small party of professionals for whom a
series of matches and competitions had been arranged there. Taylor,
Herd, Archie Simpson, Willie Auchterlonie, and Lloyd, the local
professional, were the others. Professional golfers when they are out
together usually manage to have a pretty good time, and this occasion
was no exception. Knowing a little French, I was once appointed cashier
and paymaster for the party, but I did not know enough of the language
to feel quite at home when large figures were the subject of discussion,
and I remember that the result was an awkward incident at Bordeaux on
the return journey. We were called upon to pay excess fare for the
luxury of travelling in the express, and, failing to understand the
ticket collector, I was filling his hand with francs, one by one,
waiting for him to tell me when he was in possession of the required
amount. But he needed more and more, and the situation was becoming
embarrassing, when the guard whistled and the train moved off. If it had
not been for that intervention we might still have been paying him
excess fare. I went to Ganton immediately on my return, and in the
spring of that year, 1896, a match between Taylor and myself was
arranged on my new course, when I had the satisfaction of winning.
I was looking forward very keenly to the Open Championship that year. It
was at Muirfield, and it took place only four or five weeks after this
encouraging victory over Taylor. In the meantime I had been a little off
my game, and when I teed my first ball at Muirfield it seemed to me that
I was as likely to make a bad drive as a good one, and I was equally
uncertain with all the other clubs in my bag. But as it happened I was
fortunate enough to be playing well during the competition, and was
close up at the end of the first day, with Taylor in the next place
above me. The next day I was again playing well, and the result was
exciting. Taylor was doing his rounds only a few holes in front of me,
and late in the contest it became apparent that the issue would be left
between us. I did not know exactly what I had to do to win until about
four holes from the finish, when someone, who had seen Taylor putt out
at the last green, came up to me and told me what number of strokes was
still left to me to play if I were to tie with him. When I came to the
last hole I had set me what I think was the most anxious problem that
has ever come my way since I first took up golf. I had five strokes left
to play in order to tie with Taylor and give me the right to play off
with him for the Championship, and four left with which to win it
outright. It is a fairly long hole--a drive and a good brassy, with a
very nasty bunker guarding the green. Thus, while it was an easy 5, it
was a difficult 4, and the bold golfer who made his bid for the low
figure might possibly be punished with a 6. My drive was good, and then
I had to make my choice between the bold game and the sure one. A
Championship hung upon the decision. The prospect of being the winner in
less than five minutes was tempting. The brassy would give me the
Championship or nothing. The iron would admit me to the privilege of
playing off with Taylor another day. I hesitated. I think I would have
taken the iron in any case; but just when I was longing for an
inspiration, my eye wandered among the spectators some sixty or seventy
yards in front of me, and I caught sight of my friend James Kay of
Seaton Carew making frantic efforts to attract my attention, and
pointing with his hand to the ground on the near side of the bunker as a
hint to play short. That settled it. I played short, got my 5, and tied
with Taylor with a total score of 316.
The play-off was full of interest and excitement. Taylor and I were
granted permission to take part in a tournament at North Berwick before
we settled the question between us. When at length we teed up again at
Muirfield, I felt as though I were fit to play for anything, and started
in a way that justified my confidence, for I picked up a useful lead of
five strokes in the first half-dozen holes. After that Taylor settled
down to most brilliant golf, and brought my lead down to a single
stroke; but at the end of the first round I was two to the good. To my
exasperation, this lead disappeared with the very first stroke that I
made after lunch. There is a wood running along the left-hand side of
the line of the first hole on this course. With my cleek shot from the
tee I pulled the ball into this dismal place, and by the rule in force
at the time I lost two strokes and played again from the tee, Taylor
holing out in 3 to my 5. However, at this crisis I came out again and
won a stroke at each of the next three holes, and only lost one of them
from that point to the seventeenth. Two strokes to the good and two
holes to go--that at least seemed good for the Championship. On the
seventeenth green, my brother Tom, who was carrying my clubs for me,
took a lot of trouble to point out the line of a putt the whole length
of the green, but something prompted me to take an entirely different
course, and I holed the putt, gaining another stroke. There we were,
Taylor and I, at that last hole again, but this time we were together,
and I had a big advantage over my good friend on this occasion. There
was more mental golf to be played, and though Taylor's ordeal was the
more trying, neither of us had any difficulty in coming to a decision.
My course was clear. With a lead of three strokes I had to play for a 5,
as on the previous occasion, because it was certain to give me the
Championship. Taylor's only chance was to blaze away with both his
driver and his brassy, and trust to getting his second shot so well
placed on the green as to secure a 3, which, in the event of my dropping
a stroke through an accident in the bunker or elsewhere and taking 6,
would enable him to tie. I obtained my 5 without difficulty, but
Taylor's gallant bid for 3 met with an unhappy fate, for his second shot
was trapped in the bunker, and it took him 6 to hole out. And so with a
score of 157 to Taylor's 161, I was Open Champion at last, and for the
first time in my life I felt some emotion as a golfer. I was too dazed
to speak, and it seemed as if my feet had taken root on the eighteenth
green, for I don't think I moved for several minutes.
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 L100 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
L400, 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.
CHAPTER III
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 (he knows that this is
the cause), 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.
CHAPTER IV
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.
A beginner may at the outset limit himself to the purchase of six new
clubs. He must have a driver, a brassy, a cleek, an iron, a mashie, and
a putter. At an early opportunity he may add a niblick to this small
set, but there is no need to invest in it at the outset, and as this
club is one which is least likely to require change, it is best that it
should not be bought until the player has some ideas of his own as to
what is wanted. By way of indicating what will be needful to make this
set complete for the purposes of good golf, when the player has obtained
a fairly complete experience, I may mention the instruments that I take
out when playing an important match. I have two drivers, one brassy, a
baffy or spoon, two cleeks (one shorter than the other), an iron,
sometimes one mashie, sometimes two (one for running up and the other
for pitch shots), a niblick, and sometimes two putters (one for long
running-up putts and the other for holing out). This selection may be
varied slightly according to the course on which the match is to be
played and the state of the weather, but in general principles the
constitution of the bag remains the same, and a player who is equipped
with such a set ought to be able to play any hole in any way, and if he
cannot do so it is his own skill that is lacking and not an extra club.
We may now consider in order a few of the points of these clubs. I shall
have occasion, when dealing with the method of play with each of them,
to call attention to many points of detail which can only be properly
explained when indicating particular objects which it is desired to
achieve with them, so for the present I shall confine myself chiefly to
general features.
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 (for these remarks apply to all wooden clubs) 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 (putting cleek) 33-1/2 " 15 "
Each measurement was made from the heel to the end of the shaft.
[Illustration: _PLATE I._ MY SET OF CLUBS]
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.
CHAPTER V
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.
First, then, as to distance from the ball. The player should stand so
far away from it that when he is in position and the club face is
resting against the teed ball, just as when ready to strike it, the end
of the shaft shall reach exactly up to his left knee when the latter is
ever so slightly bent. In this position he should be able, when he has
properly gripped the club, to reach the ball comfortably and without any
stretching, the arms indeed being not quite straight out but having a
slight bend at the elbows, so that when the club is waggled in the
preliminary address to the ball, plenty of play can be felt in them. I
must now invite the player who is following me in these remarks to give
his attention simultaneously to the photograph of myself, as I have
taken my stance upon the tee for an ordinary drive (Plate VI.), with the
object of getting the longest ball possible under conditions in all
respects normal; and to the small diagram in the corner of the picture
giving all the measurements necessary to a complete understanding of the
position. I may point out again that my height is 5 feet 9-1/4 inches,
and that the length of my driver from the heel to the end of the shaft
is 42 inches. My stature being medium, the majority of players who
desire to follow my suggestions will be able to do so without any
altering of the measurements given in these diagrams; and, indeed, until
any variation in height one way or the other becomes considerable, there
is no necessity to vary them. Remember that in this and all subsequent
illustrations the line marked A points to the direction in which it is
desired that the ball should travel, and that the B line over which the
player stands is at right angles to it. Those who wish at this moment to
examine the stance in the most practical manner, and to compare it with
that which they have been in the habit of playing from, need hardly be
informed that at the corners of nearly every carpet there are
rectangular lines either in the pattern or made by borders, which may be
taken to represent those in the diagram, and a penny placed at the
junction will stand for the ball. It will be observed that, for the most
lucid and complete exposition of the stances, in this and all subsequent
cases, the diagrams have been turned about, so that here the player has,
as it were, his back to the reader, while in the photographs he is, of
course, facing him. But the stances are identical. The diagrams have
been drawn to scale.
It will be noticed, in the first place, that I have my toes turned well
outwards. The pivoting which is necessary, and which will be described
in due course, is done naturally and without any effort when the toes
are pointed in this manner. While it is a mistake to place the feet too
near each other, there is a common tendency to place them too far apart.
When this is done, ease and perfection of the swing are destroyed and
power is wasted, whilst the whole movement is devoid of grace. It will
be seen that my left foot is a little, but not much, in advance of the
ball. My heel, indeed, is almost level with it, being but an inch from
the B line at the end of which the ball is teed. The toe, however, is
9-1/2 inches away from it, all measurements in this case and others
being taken from the exact centre of the point of the toe. The point of
the right toe is 19 inches distant from the B line, and while this toe
is 27-1/2 inches from the A line the other is 34 inches from it, so that
the right foot is 6-1/2 inches in advance of the left. After giving
these measurements, there is really little more to explain about the
stance, particularly as I shall show shortly how variations from it
almost certainly bring about imperfect drives. Theoretically, the reason
for the position is, I think, fairly obvious. The right foot is in
advance of the left, so that at the most critical period of the stroke
there shall be nothing to impede the follow-through, but everything to
encourage it, and so that at the finish the body itself can be thrown
forward in the last effort to continue the application of power. It
would not be in a position to do so if the left foot were in front to
bar the way. The position of the ball as between the right foot and the
left is such that the club will strike it just at the time when it is
capable of doing so to the utmost advantage, being then, and for the
very minute portion of a second during which ball and club may be
supposed to remain in contact, moving in as nearly as possible a
straight line and at its maximum speed.
[Illustration: _PLATE II._ THE GRIP WITH THE LEFT HAND]
[Illustration: _PLATE III._ THE OVERLAPPING GRIP]
[Illustration: _PLATE IV._ THE OVERLAPPING GRIP]
[Illus ration: _PLATE V._ THE OVERLAPPING GRIP]
Now comes the all-important consideration of the grip. This is another
matter in which the practice of golfers differs greatly, and upon which
there has been much controversy. My grip is one of my own invention. It
differs materially from most others, and if I am asked to offer any
excuse for it, I shall say that I adopted it only after a careful trial
of all the other grips of which I had ever heard, that in theory and
practice I find it admirable--more so than any other--and that in my
opinion it has contributed materially to the attainment of such skill as
I possess. The favour which I accord to my method might be viewed with
suspicion if it had been my natural or original grip, which came
naturally or accidentally to me when I first began to play as a boy, so
many habits that are bad being contracted at this stage and clinging to
the player for the rest of his life. But this was not the case, for when
I first began to play golf I grasped my club in what is generally
regarded as the orthodox manner, that is to say, across the palms of
both hands separately, with both thumbs right round the shaft (on the
left one, at all events), and with the joins between the thumbs and
first fingers showing like two V's over the top of the shaft. This is
usually described as the two-V grip, and it is the one which is taught
by the majority of professionals to whom the beginner appeals for first
instruction in the game. Of course it is beyond question that some
players achieve very fine results with this grip, but I abandoned it
many years ago in favour of one that I consider to be better. My
contention is that this grip of mine is sounder in theory and easier in
practice, tends to make a better stroke and to secure a straighter ball,
and that players who adopt it from the beginning will stand a much
better chance of driving well at an early stage than if they went in for
the old-fashioned two-V. My grip is an overlapping, but not an
interlocking one. Modifications of it are used by many fine players, and
it is coming into more general practice as its merits are understood and
appreciated. I use it for all my strokes, and it is only when putting
that I vary it in the least, and then the change is so slight as to be
scarcely noticeable. The photographs (Plates II., III., IV., and V.)
illustrating the grip of the left hand singly, and of the two together
from different points of view, should now be closely examined.
It will be seen at once that I do not grasp the club across the palm of
either hand. The club being taken in the left hand first, the shaft
passes from the knuckle joint of the first finger across the ball of the
second. The left thumb lies straight down the shaft--that is to say, it
is just to the left of the centre of the shaft. But the following are
the significant features of the grip. The right hand is brought up so
high that the palm of it covers over the left thumb, leaving very little
of the latter to be seen. The first and second fingers of the right hand
just reach round to the thumb of the left, and the third finger
completes the overlapping process, so that the club is held in the grip
as if it were in a vice. The little finger of the right hand rides on
the first finger of the left. The great advantage of this grip is that
both hands feel and act like one, and if, even while sitting in his
chair, a player who has never tried it before will take a stick in his
hands in the manner I have described, he must at once be convinced that
there is a great deal in what I say for it, although, of course, if he
has been accustomed to the two V's, the success of my grip cannot be
guaranteed at the first trial. It needs some time to become thoroughly
happy with it.
We must now consider the degree of tightness of the grip by either hand,
for this is an important matter. Some teachers of golf and various books
of instruction inform us that we should grasp the club firmly with the
left hand and only lightly with the right, leaving the former to do the
bulk of the work and the other merely to guide the operations. It is
astonishing with what persistency this error has been repeated, for
error I truly believe it is. Ask any really first-class player with what
comparative tightness he holds the club in his right and left hands, and
I am confident that in nearly every case he will declare that he holds
it nearly if not quite as tightly with the right hand as with the left.
Personally I grip quite as firmly with the right hand as with the other
one. When the other way is adopted, the left hand being tight and the
right hand simply watching it, as it were, there is an irresistible
tendency for the latter to tighten up suddenly at some part of the
upward or downward swing, and, as surely as there is a ball on the tee,
when it does so there will be mischief. Depend upon it the instinct of
activity will prevent the right hand from going through with the swing
in that indefinite state of looseness. Perhaps a yard from the ball in
the upward swing, or a yard from it when coming down, there will be a
convulsive grip of the right hand which, with an immediate
acknowledgment of guilt, will relax again. Such a happening is usually
fatal; it certainly deserves to be. Slicing, pulling, sclaffing, and the
foundering of the innocent globe--all these tragedies may at times be
traced to this determination of the right hand not to be ignored but to
have its part to play in the making of the drive. Therefore in all
respects my right hand is a joint partner with the left.
The grip with the first finger and thumb of my right hand is exceedingly
firm, and the pressure of the little finger on the knuckle of the left
hand is very decided. In the same way it is the thumb and first finger
of the left hand that have most of the gripping work to do. Again, the
palm of the right hand presses hard against the thumb of the left. In
the upward swing this pressure is gradually decreased, until when the
club reaches the turning-point there is no longer any such pressure;
indeed, at this point the palm and the thumb are barely in contact. This
release is a natural one, and will or should come naturally to the
player for the purpose of allowing the head of the club to swing well
and freely back. But the grip of the thumb and first finger of the right
hand, as well as that of the little finger upon the knuckle of the first
finger of the left hand, is still as firm as at the beginning. As the
club head is swung back again towards the ball, the palm of the right
hand and the thumb of the left gradually come together again. Both the
relaxing and the re-tightening are done with the most perfect
graduation, so that there shall be no jerk to take the club off the
straight line. The easing begins when the hands are about shoulder high
and the club shaft is perpendicular, because it is at this time that the
club begins to pull, and if it were not let out in the manner explained,
the result would certainly be a half shot or very little more than that,
for a full and perfect swing would be an impossibility. This relaxation
of the palm also serves to give more freedom to the wrist at the top of
the swing just when that freedom is desirable.
I have the strongest belief in the soundness of the grip that I have
thus explained, for when it is employed both hands are acting in unison
and to the utmost advantage, whereas it often happens in the two-V grip,
even when practised by the most skilful players, that in the downward
swing there is a sense of the left hand doing its utmost to get through
and of the right hand holding it back.
There is only one other small matter to mention in connection with the
question of grip. Some golfers imagine that if they rest the left thumb
down the shaft and let the right hand press upon it there will be a
considerable danger of breaking the thumb, so severe is the pressure
when the stroke is being made. As a matter of fact, I have quite
satisfied myself that if the thumb is kept in the same place there is
not the slightest risk of anything of the kind. Also if the thumb
remains immovable, as it should, there is no possibility of the club
turning in the hands as so often happens in the case of the two-V grip
when the ground is hit rather hard, a pull or a slice being the usual
consequence. I must be excused for treating upon these matters at such
length. They are often neglected, but they are of extreme importance in
laying the foundations of a good game of golf.
In addressing the ball, take care to do so with the centre of the face
of the club, that is, at the desired point of contact. Some awkward
eccentricities may frequently be observed on the tee. A player may be
seen addressing his ball from the toe of the driver, and I have even
noticed the address being made with the head of the club quite inside
the ball, while in other cases it is the heel of the club which is
applied to the object to be struck. The worthy golfers who are
responsible for these freaks of style no doubt imagine that they are
doing a wise and proper thing, and in the most effectual manner
counteracting some other irregularity of their method of play which may
not be discoverable, and which is in any case incurable. Yet nothing is
more certain than that another irregularity must be introduced into the
drive in order to correct the one made in the address. To the point at
which the club is addressed it will naturally return in the course of
the swing, and if it is to be guided to any other than the original
place, there must be a constant effort all through the swing to effect
this change in direction, and most likely somewhere or other there will
be sufficient jerk to spoil the drive. In the case where the ball is
addressed with the toe of the club, the player must find it necessary
almost to fall on the ball in coming down, and it is quite impossible
for him to get his full distance in such circumstances.
A waggle of the head of the club as a preliminary before commencing the
swing is sometimes necessary after the stance and grip have been taken,
but every young golfer should be warned against excess in this habit.
With the stance and grip arranged, the line of the shot in view, and a
full knowledge of what is required from the stroke, there is really very
little more that needs thinking about before the swing is taken. One
short preliminary waggle will tend to make the player feel comfortable
and confident, but some golfers may be observed trying the patience of
all about them by an interminable process of waggling, the most likely
result of which is a duffed shot, since, when at last the stroke is
made, the player is in a state of semi-catalepsy, and has no clear idea
of what he is going to do or how he is going to do it.
In addressing the ball, and during the upward and downward swings until
it has been safely despatched, the sight should be kept riveted, not on
the top of the ball, as is customary, but upon the ground immediately to
the right of it (see diagram on p. 170). To the point where the gaze is
fixed the head of the club will automatically be guided. That is why you
are told to keep your eye on the ball. But you do not want to hit the
top of the ball. So look to the side, where you do want to hit it.
CHAPTER VI
DRIVING--THE SWING OF THE CLUB
"Slow back"--The line of the club head in the upward swing--The
golfer's head must be kept rigid--The action of the
wrists--Position at the top of the swing--Movements of the
arms--Pivoting of the body--No swaying--Action of the feet and
legs--Speed of the club during the swing--The moment of
impact--More about the wrists--No pure wrist shot in golf--The
follow-through--Timing of the body action--Arms and hands high up
at the finish--How bad drives are made--The causes of slicing--When
the ball is pulled--Misapprehensions as to slicing and
pulling--Dropping of the right shoulder--Its evil consequences--No
trick in long driving--Hit properly and hard--What is pressing and
what is not--Summary of the drive.
Now let us consider the upward and downward swings of the club, and the
movements of the arms, legs, feet, and body in relation to them. As a
first injunction, it may be stated that the club should be drawn back
rather more slowly than you intend to bring it down again. "Slow back"
is a golfing maxim that is both old and wise. The club should begin to
gain speed when the upward swing is about half made, and the increase
should be gradual until the top is reached, but it should never be so
fast that control of the club is to any extent lost at the
turning-point. The head of the club should be taken back fairly straight
from the ball--along the A line--for the first six inches, and after
that any tendency to sweep it round sharply to the back should be
avoided. Keep it very close to the straight line until it is half-way
up. The old St. Andrews style of driving largely consisted in this
sudden sweep round, but the modern method appears to be easier and
productive of better results. So this carrying of the head of the club
upwards and backwards seems to be a very simple matter, capable of
explanation in a very few words; but, as every golfer of a month's
experience knows, there is a long list of details to be attended to,
which I have not yet named, each of which seems to vie with the others
in its attempt to destroy the effectiveness of the drive. Let us begin
at the top, as it were, and work downwards, and first of all there is
the head of the golfer to consider.
The head should be kept perfectly motionless from the time of the
address until the ball has been sent away and is well on its flight. The
least deviation from this rule means a proportionate danger of disaster.
When a drive has been badly foozled, the readiest and most usual
explanation is that the eye has been taken off the ball, and the wise
old men who have been watching shake their heads solemnly, and utter
that parrot-cry of the links, "Keep your eye on the ball." Certainly
this is a good and necessary rule so far as it goes; but I do not
believe that one drive in a hundred is missed because the eye has not
been kept on the ball. On the other hand, I believe that one of the most
fruitful causes of failure with the tee shot is the moving of the head.
Until the ball has gone, it should, as I say, be as nearly perfectly
still as possible, and I would have written that it should not be moved
to the extent of a sixteenth of an inch, but for the fact that it is not
human to be so still, and golf is always inclined to the human side.
When the head has been kept quite still and the club has reached the top
of the upward swing, the eyes should be looking over the middle of the
left shoulder, the left one being dead over the centre of that shoulder.
Most players at one time or another, and the best of them when they are
a little off their game, fall into every trap that the evil spirits of
golf lay for them, and unconsciously experience a tendency to lift the
head for five or six inches away from the ball while the upward swing is
being taken. This is often what is imagined to be taking the eye off the
ball, particularly as, when it is carried to excess, the eye,
struggling gallantly to do its duty, finds considerable difficulty in
getting a sight of the ball over the left shoulder, and sometimes loses
it altogether for an instant. An examination of the photograph showing
the top of the swing (Plate VII.) will make it clear that there is very
little margin for the moving of the head if the ball is to be kept in
full view for the whole of the time.
[Illustration: _PLATE VI._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. THE STANCE]
[Illustration: _PLATE VII._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. TOP OF THE SWING]
[Illustration: _PLATE VIII._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. TOP OF THE SWING. FROM
BEHIND]
[Illustration: _PLATE IX._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. FINISH OF THE SWING]
In the upward swing the right shoulder should be raised gradually. It is
unnecessary for me to submit any instruction on this point, since the
movement is natural and inevitable, and there is no tendency towards
excess; but the arms and wrists need attention. From the moment when the
club is first taken back the left wrist should begin to turn inwards
(that is to say, the movement is in the same direction as that taken by
the hands of a clock), and so turn away the face of the club from the
ball. When this is properly done, the toe of the club will point to the
sky when it is level with the shoulder and will be dead over the middle
of the shaft. This turning or twisting process continues all the way
until at the top of the swing the toe of the club is pointing straight
downwards to the ground. A reference to Plate VII. will show that this
has been done, and that as the result the left wrist finishes the upward
swing underneath the shaft, which is just where it ought to be. When the
wrist has not been at work in the manner indicated, the toe of the club
at the top of the drive will be pointing upwards. In order to satisfy
himself properly about the state of affairs thus far in the making of
the drive, the golfer should test himself at the top of the swing by
holding the club firmly in the position which it has reached, and then
dropping the right hand from the grip. He will thus be enabled to look
right round, and if he then finds that the maker's name on the head of
the club is horizontal, he will know that he has been doing the right
thing with his wrists, while if it is vertical the wrist action has been
altogether wrong.
During the upward swing the arms should be gradually let out in the
enjoyment of perfect ease and freedom (without being spread-eagled away
from the body) until at the top of the swing the left arm, from the
shoulder to the elbow, is gently touching the body and hanging well
down, while the right arm is up above it and almost level with the club.
The picture indicates exactly what I mean, and a reference to the
illustration showing what ought not to be the state of affairs generally
when the top of the swing is reached (Plate XI.), should convince even
the veriest beginner how much less comfortable is the position of the
arms in this instance than when the right thing has been done, and how
laden with promise is the general attitude of the player in the latter
position as compared with his cramped state in the former. I think I
ought to state, partly in justice to myself, and partly to persuade my
readers that the best way in this case, as in all others, is the most
natural, that I found it most inconvenient and difficult to make such
extremely inaccurate swings as those depicted in this and other
photographs of the "How not to do it" series, although they are by no
means exaggerations of what are seen on the links every day, even
players of several years' experience being constantly responsible for
them.
In the upward movement of the club the body must pivot from the waist
alone, and there must be no swaying, not even to the extent of an inch.
When the player sways in his drive the stroke he makes is a body stroke
pure and simple. The body is trying to do the work the arms should do,
and in these circumstances it is impossible to get so much power into
the stroke as if it were properly made, while once more the old enemies,
the slice and the pull, will come out from their hiding-places with
their mocking grin at the unhappy golfer.
The movements of the feet and legs are important. In addressing the ball
you stand with both feet flat and securely placed on the ground, the
weight equally divided between them, and the legs so slightly bent at
the knee joints as to make the bending scarcely noticeable. This
position is maintained during the upward movement of the club until the
arms begin to pull at the body. The easiest and most natural thing to do
then, and the one which suggests itself, is to raise the heel of the
left foot and begin to pivot on the left toe, which allows the arms to
proceed with their uplifting process without let or hindrance. Do not
begin to pivot on this left toe ostentatiously, or because you feel you
ought to do so, but only when you know the time has come and you want
to, and do it only to such an extent that the club can reach the full
extent of the swing without any difficulty. While this is happening it
follows that the weight of the body is being gradually thrown on to the
right leg, which accordingly stiffens until at the top of the swing it
is quite rigid, the left leg being at the same time in a state of
comparative freedom, slightly bent in towards the right, with only just
enough pressure on the toe to keep it in position.
To the man who has never driven a good ball in his life this process
must seem very tedious. All these things to attend to, and something
less than a second in which to attend to them! It only indicates how
much there is in this wonderful game--more by far than any of us suspect
or shall ever discover. But the time comes, and it should come speedily,
when they are all accomplished without any effort, and, indeed, to a
great extent, unconsciously. The upward swing is everything. If it is
bad and faulty, the downward swing will be wrong and the ball will not
be properly driven. If it is perfect, there is a splendid prospect of a
long and straight drive, carrying any hazard that may lie before the
tee. That is why so very much emphasis must be laid on getting this
upward swing perfect, and why comparatively little attention need be
paid to the downward swing, even though it is really the effective part
of the stroke.
Be careful not to dwell at the turn of the swing. The club has been
gaining in speed right up to this point, and though I suppose that,
theoretically, there is a pause at the turning-point, lasting for an
infinitesimal portion of a second, the golfer should scarcely be
conscious of it. He must be careful to avoid a sudden jerk, but if he
dwells at the top of the stroke for only a second, or half that short
period of time, his upward swing in all its perfection will have been
completely wasted, and his stroke will be made under precisely the same
circumstances and with exactly the same disadvantages as if the club had
been poised in this position at the start, and there had been no attempt
at swinging of any description. In such circumstances a long ball is an
impossibility, and a straight one a matter of exceeding doubt. The odds
are not very greatly in favour of the ball being rolled off the teeing
ground. So don't dwell at the turn; come back again with the club.
The club should gradually gain in speed from the moment of the turn
until it is in contact with the ball, so that at the moment of impact
its head is travelling at its fastest pace. After the impact, the club
head should be allowed to follow the ball straight in the line of the
flag as far as the arms will let it go, and then, having done everything
that is possible, it swings itself out at the other side of the
shoulders. The entire movement must be perfectly smooth and rhythmical;
in the downward swing, while the club is gaining speed, there must not
be the semblance of a jerk anywhere such as would cause a jump, or a
double swing, or what might be called a cricket stroke. That, in a few
lines, is the whole story of the downward swing; but it needs some
little elaboration of detail. In the first place, avoid the
tendency--which is to some extent natural--to let the arms go out or
away from the body as soon as the downward movement begins. When they
are permitted to do so the club head escapes from its proper line, and a
fault is committed which cannot be remedied before the ball is struck.
Knowing by instinct that you are outside the proper course, you make a
great effort at correction, the face of the club is drawn across the
ball, and there is one more slice. The arms should be kept fairly well
in during the latter half of the downward swing, both elbows almost
grazing the body. If they are properly attended to when the club is
going up, there is much more likelihood of their coming down all right.
The head is still kept motionless and the body pivots easily at the
waist; but when the club is half-way down, the left hip is allowed to go
forward a little--a preliminary to and preparation for the forward
movement of the body which is soon to begin. The weight is being
gradually moved back again from the right leg to the left. At the moment
of impact both feet are equally weighted and are flat on the ground,
just as they were when the ball was being addressed; indeed, the
position of the body, legs, arms, head, and every other detail is, or
ought to be, exactly the same when the ball is being struck as they were
when it was addressed, and for that reason I refer my readers again to
the photograph of the address (No. VI.) as the most correct position of
everything at the moment of striking. After the impact the weight is
thrown on to the left leg, which stiffens, while the right toe pivots
and the knee bends just as its partner did in the earlier stage of the
stroke, but perhaps to a greater extent, since there is no longer any
need for restraint.
Now pay attention to the wrists. They should be held fairly tightly. If
the club is held tightly the wrists will be tight, and _vice versa_.
When the wrists are tight there is little play in them, and more is
demanded of the arms. I don't believe in the long ball coming from the
wrists. In defiance of principles which are accepted in many quarters, I
will go so far as to say that, except in putting, there is no pure wrist
shot in golf. Some players attempt to play their short approaches with
their wrists as they have been told to do. These men are likely to
remain at long handicaps for a long time. Similarly there is a kind of
superstition that the elect among drivers get in some peculiar kind of
"snap"--a momentary forward pushing movement--with their wrists at the
time of impact, and that it is this wrist work at the critical period
which gives the grand length to their drives, those extra twenty or
thirty yards which make the stroke look so splendid, so uncommon, and
which make the next shot so much easier. Generally speaking, the wrists
when held firmly will take very good care of themselves; but there is a
tendency, particularly when the two-V grip is used, to allow the right
hand to take charge of affairs at the time the ball is struck, and the
result is that the right wrist, as the swing is completed, gradually
gets on to the top of the shaft instead of remaining in its proper
place. The consequence is a pulled ball,--in fact, this is just the way
in which I play for a pull. When the fault is committed to a still
greater extent, the head of the club is suddenly turned over, and then
the ball is foundered, as we say,--that is, it is struck downwards, and
struggles, crippled and done for, a few yards along the ground in front
of the tee. I find that ladies are particularly addicted to this very
bad habit. Once again I have to say that if the club is taken up
properly there is the greater certainty of its coming down properly, and
then if you keep both hands evenly to their work there is a great
probability of a good follow-through being properly effected.
When the ball has been struck, and the follow-through is being
accomplished, there are two rules, hitherto held sacred, which may at
last be broken. With the direction and force of the swing your chest is
naturally turned round until it is facing the flag, and your body now
abandons all restraint, and to a certain extent throws itself, as it
were, after the ball. There is a great art in timing this body movement
exactly. If it takes place the fiftieth part of a second too soon the
stroke will be entirely ruined; if it comes too late it will be quite
ineffectual, and will only result in making the golfer feel uneasy and
as if something had gone wrong. When made at the proper instant it adds
a good piece of distance to the drive, and that instant, as explained,
is just when the club is following through. An examination of the
photograph indicating the finish of the swing (No. IX.) will show how
my body has been thrown forward until at this stage it is on the outward
side of the B line, although it was slightly on the other side when the
ball was being addressed. Secondly, when the ball has gone, and the
arms, following it, begin to pull, the head, which has so far been held
perfectly still, is lifted up so as to give freedom to the swing, and
incidentally it allows the eyes to follow the flight of the ball.
[Illustration: _PLATE X._ HOW NOT TO DRIVE
_In this case the player's feet are much to close together, and there is
a space between the hands as there should never be, whatever style of
grip is favored. Also the right hand is too much underneath the shaft.
The result of these faults will usually be a pulled ball, but a long
drive of any sort is impossible._]
[Illustration: _PLATE XI._ HOW NOT TO DRIVE
_In this case the left wrist instead of being underneath the handle is
level with it--a common and dangerous fault. The left arm is
spread-eagled outwards, and the toe of the club is not pointing
downwards as it ought to be. The pivoting on the left toe is very
imperfect. There is no power in this position. Sometimes the result is a
pull, but frequently the ball will be foundered. No length is
possible._]
[Illustration: _PLATE XII._ HOW NOT TO DRIVE
_This is an example of a bad finish. Instead of being thrown forward
after the impact the body has fallen away. The usual consequence is a
sliced ball, and this is also one of the commonest causes of short
driving._]
[Illustration: _PLATE XIII._ HOW NOT TO DRIVE
_Here again the body has failed to follow the ball after impact. The
stance is very bad, the forward position of the left foot preventing a
satisfactory follow-through. The worst fault committed here, however, is
the position taken by the left arm. The elbow is far too low. It should
be at least as high as the right elbow. Result--complete lack of power
and length._]
I like to see the arms finish well up with the hands level with the
head. This generally means a properly hit ball and a good
follow-through. At the finish of the stroke the right arm should be
above the left, the position being exactly the reverse of that in which
the arms were situated at the top of the swing, except that now the
right arm is not quite so high as the left one was at the earlier stage.
The photograph (No. IX.) indicates that the right arm is some way below
the level of the shaft of the club, whereas it will be remembered that
the left arm was almost exactly on a level with it. Notice also the
position of the wrists at the finish of the stroke.
Having thus indicated at such great length the many points which go to
the making of a good drive, a long one and a straight one, yet abounding
with ease and grace, allow me to show how some of the commonest faults
are caused by departures from the rules for driving. Take the sliced
ball, as being the trouble from which the player most frequently
suffers, and which upon occasion will exasperate him beyond measure.
When a golfer is slicing badly almost every time, it is frequently
difficult for him to discover immediately the exact source of the
trouble, for there are two or three ways in which it comes about. The
player may be standing too near to the ball; he may be pulling in his
arms too suddenly as he is swinging on to it, thus drawing the club
towards his left foot; or he may be falling on to the ball at the moment
of impact. When the stance is taken too near to the ball there is a
great inducement to the arms to take a course too far outwards (in the
direction of the A line) in the upward swing. The position is cramped,
and the player does not seem able to get the club round at all
comfortably. When the club head is brought on to the ball after a swing
of this kind, the face is drawn right across it, and a slice is
inevitable. In diagnosing the malady, in cases where the too close
stance is suspected, it is a good thing to apply the test of distance
given at the beginning of the previous chapter, and see whether, when
the club head is resting in position against the teed ball, the other
end of the shaft just reaches to the left knee when it is in position,
and has only just so much bend in it as it has when the ball is being
addressed. The second method of committing the slicing sin is
self-explanatory. As for the third, a player falls on the ball, or sways
over in the direction of the tee (very slightly, but it is the trifles
that matter most) when his weight has not been properly balanced to
start with, and when in the course of the swing it has been moved
suddenly from one leg to the other instead of quite gradually. But
sometimes falling on the ball is caused purely and simply by swaying the
body, against which the player has already been warned. When the slicing
is bad, the methods of the golfer should be tested for each of these
irregularities, and he should remember that an inch difference in any
position or movement as he stands upon the tee is a great distance, and
that two inches is a vast space, which the mind trained to calculate in
small fractions can hardly conceive.
Pulling is not such a common fault, although one which is sometimes very
annoying. Generally speaking, a pulled ball is a much better one than
one which has been sliced, and there are some young players who are
rather inclined to purr with satisfaction when they have pulled, for,
though the ball is hopelessly off the line, they have committed an error
which is commoner with those whose hair has grown grey on the links than
with the beginner whose handicap is reckoned by eighteen or twenty
strokes. But after all pulling is not an amusement, and even when it is
an accomplishment and not an accident, it should be most carefully
regulated. It is the right hand which is usually the offender in this
case. The wrist is wrong at the moment of impact, and generally at the
finish of the stroke as well,--that is, it is on the top of the club,
indicating that the right hand has done most of the work. In a case of
this sort the top edge of the face of the club is usually overlapping
the bottom edge, so that the face is pointing slightly downwards at the
moment of impact; and when this position is brought about with extreme
suddenness the ball is frequently foundered. If it escapes this fate,
then it is pulled. A second cause of pulling is a sudden relaxation of
the grip of the right hand at the time of hitting the ball. When this
happens, the left hand, being uncontrolled, turns over the club head in
the same manner as in the first case, and the result is the same.
I have found from experience that it is necessary to enjoin even players
of some years' standing to make quite certain that they are slicing and
pulling, before they complain about their doing so and try to find cures
for it. In a great number of cases a player will take his stance in
quite the wrong direction, either too much round to the right or too
much to the left, and when the ball has flown truly along the line on
which it was despatched, the golfer blandly remarks that it was a bad
slice or a bad pull, as the case may be. He must bring himself to
understand that a ball is neither sliced nor pulled when it continues
flying throughout in the direction in which it started from the tee. It
is only when it begins performing evolutions in the air some distance
away, and taking a half wheel to the right or left, that it has fallen a
victim to the slice or pull.
There is one more fault of the drive which must be mentioned. It is one
of the commonest mistakes that the young golfer makes, and one which
afflicts him most keenly, for when he makes it his drive is not a drive
at all; all his power, or most of it, has been expended on the turf
some inches behind the ball. The right shoulder has been dropped too
soon or too low. During the address this shoulder is necessarily a
little below the left one, and care must be taken at this stage that it
is not allowed to drop more than is necessary. At the top of the swing
the right shoulder is naturally well above the other one, and at the
moment of impact with the ball it should just have resumed its original
position slightly below the left. It often happens, however, that even
very good golfers, after a period of excellent driving, through sheer
over-confidence or carelessness, will fall into the way of dropping the
right shoulder too soon, or, when they do drop it, letting it go
altogether, so that it fairly sinks away. The result is exactly what is
to be expected. The head of the club naturally comes down with the
shoulder and flops ineffectually upon the turf behind the tee, anything
from two to nine inches behind the ball. Yet, unless the golfer has had
various attacks of this sort of thing before, he is often puzzled to
account for it. The remedy is obvious.
I can imagine that many good golfers, now that I near the end of my
hints on driving, may feel some sense of disappointment because I have
not given them a recipe for putting thirty or forty yards on to their
commonplace drives. I can only say that there is no trick or knack in
doing it, as is often suspected, such as the suggestion, already alluded
to, that the wrists have a little game of their own just when the club
head is coming in contact with the ball. The way to drive far is to
comply with the utmost care with every injunction that I have set forth,
and then to hit hard but by the proper use of the swing. To some golfers
this may be a dangerous truth, but it must be told: it is accuracy and
strength which make the long ball. But I seem to hear the young player
wail, "When I hit hard you say 'Don't press!'" A golfer is not pressing
when he swings through as fast as he can with his club, gaining speed
steadily, although he is often told that he is. But it most frequently
happens that when he tries to get this extra pace all at once, and not
as the result of gradual improvement and perfection of style, that it
comes not smoothly but in a great jerk just before the ball is reached.
This is certainly the way that it comes when the golfer is off his game,
and he tries, often unconsciously, to make up in force what he has
temporarily lost in skill. This really is pressing, and it is this
against which I must warn every golfer in the same grave manner that he
has often been warned before. But to the player who, by skill and
diligence of practice, increases the smooth and even pace of his swing,
keeping his legs, body, arms, and head in their proper places all the
time, I have nothing to give but encouragement, though long before this
he himself will have discovered that he has found out the wonderful,
delightful secret of the long ball.
Two chapters of detailed instruction are too much for a player to carry
in his mind when he goes out on to the links to practise drives, and for
his benefit I will here make the briefest possible summary of what I
have already stated. Let him attend, then, to the following chief
points:--
_Stance._--The player should stand just so far away from the ball, that
when the face of the driver is laid against it in position for striking,
the other end of the shaft exactly reaches to the left knee when the
latter is slightly bent. The right foot may be anything up to seven
inches in front of the left, but certainly never behind it. The left toe
should be a trifle in advance of the ball. The toes should be turned
outwards. Make a low tee.
_Grip._--As described. Remember that the palm of the right hand presses
hard on the left thumb at all times except when nearing and at the top
of the swing. The grip of the thumb and the first two fingers of each
hand is constantly firm.
_Upward Swing._--The club head must be taken back in a straight line for
a few inches, and then brought round gradually--not too straight up
(causing slicing) nor too far round in the old-fashioned style. The
speed of the swing increases gradually. The elbows are kept fairly well
in, the left wrist turning inwards and finishing the upward swing well
underneath the shaft. The body must not be allowed to sway. It should
pivot easily from the waist. The head must be kept quite still. The
weight is gradually thrown entirely on to the right leg, the left knee
bends inwards, the left heel rises, and the toe pivots. There must be no
jerk at the turn of the swing.
_Downward Swing._--There should be a gradual increase of pace, but no
jerk anywhere. The arms must be kept well down when the club is
descending, the elbows almost grazing the body. The right wrist should
not be allowed to get on to the top of the club. The head is still
motionless. The left hip is allowed to move forward very slightly while
the club is coming down. The weight of the body is gradually transferred
from the right leg to the left, the right toe pivoting after the impact,
and the left leg stiffening. The right shoulder must be prevented from
dropping too much. After the impact the arms should be allowed to follow
the ball and the body to go forward, the latter movement being timed
very carefully. The head may now be raised. Finish with the arms well
up--the right arm above the left.
_Slicing._--This may be caused by standing too near to the ball, by
pulling in the arms, or by falling on the ball.
_Pulling._--Usually caused by the head of the club being turned partly
over when the ball is struck, or by relaxing the grip with the right
hand.
I can only agree with those who have followed me so patiently through
these two chapters, that to drive a golf ball well is a thing not to be
learned in a week or a month.
CHAPTER VII
BRASSY AND SPOON
Good strokes with the brassy--Play as with the driver--The points
of the brassy--The stance--Where and how to hit the ball--Playing
from cuppy lies--Jab strokes from badly-cupped lies--A difficult
club to master--The man with the spoon--The lie for the baffy--What
it can and cannot do--Character of the club--The stance--Tee shots
with the baffy--Iron clubs are better.
When to your caddie you say "Give me my brassy" it is a sign that there
is serious work to be done--as serious and anxious as any that has to be
accomplished during the six or seven minutes' journey from the tee to
the hole. Many golfers have a fondness for the brassy greater even than
for the driver, and the brassy shot when well played certainly affords a
greater sense of satisfaction than the drive--great as is the joy of a
good drive--because one is conscious of having triumphed over
difficulties. When the ball is lying very well when it has to be played
through the green, the driver is naturally taken, but when the lie is
very low, approaching even to a cuppy character, the brassy is called
for so that an effort may be made to pick the ball up cleanly and
despatch it to the full distance. Again, the stroke with the brassy must
always be a first-class one. One that is a little inferior to the best
may place the player in serious difficulties. On the other hand, the
brassy seldom flatters its user, though in the hands of a master player
it is perhaps the club that will gain a stroke for him more often than
any other, the last bunker being surmounted and the green reached
without any need for a short approach with an iron club. Therefore the
golfer must make up his mind to attain excellence with the brassy, for
mediocrity with it will always handicap him severely.
I have already insisted that the method of play, the stance, the swing,
and all the rest of it, should be the same with the brassy as with the
driver, and that I do not believe in allowing the slightest difference,
the only result of which can be to increase the difficulty of the brassy
shot. Given a ball through the green lying fairly well, a level piece of
earth to stand upon, and a practically unlimited distance to be played,
then the brassy stroke is absolutely identical with the drive, and if
the ball is sufficiently well teed, or its lie is clean enough, there is
no reason whatever why the driver should not be taken for the stroke.
Obviously, however, as the lie which you get for your second shot
depends on chance, and must be taken as it is found, there are times
when a variation from the standard method of driving will be necessary,
and it is to the process of play on these occasions that I shall chiefly
direct my remarks in this chapter.
First, however, as to the brassy itself. Its shaft should be slightly
stiffer than that of the driver, for it has much harder and rougher work
to accomplish, for which the whippy stick of a slender driver would be
too frail. In a desperate case, when the ball is lying in an apparently
impossible place, the brassy is sometimes taken, in the hope that the
best may happen and the situation be saved. That is why the brassy has a
sole of brass which will cut away obstructions behind the ball as the
head of the club is swept on to it. It often happens that you must hit,
as it were, an inch or two behind the ball in order to get it up.
Therefore let the shaft be strong. It should be exactly the same length
as that of the driver, and not a half inch or an inch shorter, as is
often recommended. I do not accept any argument in favour of the shorter
shaft. The golfer having driven from the tee needs to be persuaded that
he has again what is practically a driving shot to make for his second,
and thus to be imbued with that feeling of experience and confidence
which makes for success. When the clubs are of the same length there is
equal familiarity in using them; but if he is given a shorter club to
play his brassy shot with, he feels that there is something of a novel
nature to be done, and he wonders how. The face of the brassy should be
a little shorter than that of the driver, to permit of its being worked
into little depressions in which the ball may be lying; but this
variation of the construction of the head should not be carried to
excess. Obviously there needs to be more loft on the face of the club
than on that of the driver.
The stance for the brassy stroke (see Plate VI.) is generally the same
as for the drive, and for reasons already stated my recommendation is
that, so far as circumstances will permit,--we are not on the teeing
ground when we are playing the brassy,--it should always be the same. If
the player feels it to be desirable, he may stand an inch or two nearer
to the ball, and perhaps as much behind the ball when he wishes to get
well underneath so as to lift it up. The swing should be the same, save
that more care should be taken to ensure the grip with the hands being
quite tight, for as the club head comes into contact with the turf
before taking the ball, the club may turn in the hands and cause a slice
or pull unless perfect control be kept over it.
A more important question is, where and how to hit the ball. If it is
lying fairly well, it is only necessary to skim the top of the turf and
take it cleanly. There is no necessity in such a case, as is too often
imagined by inexperienced players, to delve down into the turf so that
the ball may be lifted up. If the stroke is played naturally, in the way
I have indicated, the loft on the face of the brassy is quite sufficient
to give the necessary amount of rise to the ball as it leaves the club.
But if, as so often happens, the ball is just a trifle cupped, a
different attitude must be adopted towards it. It is now desired that
the club should come down to the turf about an inch behind the ball, and
with this object in view the eyes should be directed to that point, but
as in addressing the ball the said point may be covered by the head of
the club, the sight should be set, not really on to the top of the club
head, but to an imaginary spot just at the side of the ball, so that
when the club is drawn back the turf and the point to look at come into
full view and retain the attention of the eyes until the stroke has been
made. When the club is swung down on to that spot, its head will plough
through the turf and be well under the ball by the time it reaches it,
and the desired rise will follow. Swing in the same manner as for the
drive. The commonest fault in the playing of this stroke comes from the
instinct of the player to try to scoop out the ball from its
resting-place, and in obedience to this instinct down goes the right
shoulder when the club is coming on to the ball. In the theory of the
beginner this course of procedure may seem wise and proper, but he will
inevitably be disappointed with the result, and in time he will come to
realise that all attempts to scoop must fail. What the club cannot do in
the ordinary way when pushed through the turf as I have indicated,
cannot be done at all, and it is dangerous to the stroke and dangerous
to one's game to trifle with the grand principles.
When the ball is really badly cupped, a moment must be given for
inspection and consideration, for the situation is an awkward one. At
the first glance an iron club is usually suggested, but there are many
times when the golfer prefers to take the brassy if there is a
reasonable chance of its proving effective. In a case of this sort the
ordinary methods of brassy play must necessarily be departed from. What
is wanted is a jabbing-out stroke, and to effect it properly the sight
must be set (as before) and the club come down on a spot almost two
inches behind the ball. There must be no timidity about hitting the
ground or anxiety about the follow-through, for in this case the
follow-through, as we have understood it so far, is next to an
impossibility, and must not be sought for. In the upward swing the club
should be taken out straighter than usual, that is to say, the club head
should be kept more closely to the A line, and it should not be carried
so far back as if an ordinary shot were being played. Obviously the club
must be held with an absolutely firm grip, and for the proper execution
of a shot like this the shaft should be exceptionally strong and stiff.
If there is the least suggestion of whip in it the ball is not
extricated in the same way, and moreover there is sometimes a danger of
breaking a slender stick. However, if the golfer only carries one brassy
in his bag--and the average player will seldom carry two--this stroke
might as well be risked, when the necessity for it arises, with the
brassy that is carried for all-round work.
Beyond these few observations there is little more to be said about
simple brassy play, although it is so difficult to master thoroughly, so
supremely important to a good game, and so full of variety and interest.
In the use of no club is constant and strenuous practice better rewarded
by improvement in play and strokes gained.
The man with the spoon is coming back again to the links, and this seems
to be the most convenient opportunity for a few remarks on play with
this club--the baffy, as it is frequently called. One rarely mentions
the spoon without being reminded of the difficulty as to the
nomenclature of golf which beset a certain Frenchman on his first
introduction to the game. "They zay to me," he complained, "'Will you
take ze tee?' and I answer, 'Ah, oui,' but they give me no tea, but make
a leetle hill with the sand. Then they zay, 'Will you take the spoon?'
They have give me no tea, but no matter. I answer again, 'Ah, oui,
monsieur,' but they give no spoon either. So I give up the thought of
the tea, and play with the new club that they do give to me." However,
that is neither here nor there. The baffy, or spoon, is a very useful
club, which at one time was a great favourite with many fine players,
and if it has of late years been largely superseded by the cleek, it is
still most valuable to those players who are not so skilful or reliable
with this latter instrument as they would like to be. The baffy demands,
for the achievement of such success as it can afford, a fairly good lie,
and when this is given it is a tolerably easy club to play with. A good
lie is essential because of its wooden head and long face, which prevent
it from getting down to the ball when the latter is at all cupped, as
the cleek would do, or as the brassy may be made to do when the jab shot
is played. The baffy with its long face cannot be burrowed into the turf
so easily, nor can it nick in between the ball and the side of the cup,
but it makes a bridge over it, as it were, and thus takes the ball right
on the top and moves it only a few yards. A cleek would take the turf
and the ball and make a good hit. Therefore, when the lie is not
reasonably perfect, the baffy is of little use, though in favourable
circumstances it is a useful stick. The shaft should be slightly longer
than that of the cleek, but appreciably shorter than that of the brassy,
and it should be fairly stiff. Its face, as already remarked, is much
longer than that of the brassy, and it is given several degrees more
loft.
The method of play with the spoon is very much the same as with the
brassy, with only such modifications as are apparently necessary. For
example, the club being shorter, the feet will be placed slightly nearer
to the ball; and although the baffy calls for a fairly long swing, the
player will find that he is naturally indisposed to take the club head
so far round to his back as he was with the other and longer wooden
clubs. In other respects, the upward and downward swing, the grip, the
follow-through, and everything else are the same. With many players the
club is a particular favourite for the tee shot at short holes of, say,
140 to 160 yards length with a tolerably high bunker guarding the
green--a type of hole very frequently encountered, and which simply
calls for steady, sure play to get the bogey 3. The baffy does its work
very well in circumstances of this kind, and the ball is brought up
fairly quickly upon the green; but the man who is skilled with his irons
will usually prefer one of them for the stroke, and will get the coveted
2 as often as the man with the spoon.
CHAPTER VIII
SPECIAL STROKES WITH WOODEN CLUBS
The master stroke in golf--Intentional pulling and slicing--The
contrariness of golf--When pulls and slices are needful--The stance
for the slice--The upward swing--How the slice is made--The short
sliced stroke--Great profits that result--Warnings against
irregularities--How to pull a ball--The way to stand--The work of
the right hand--A feature of the address--What makes a pull--Effect
of wind on the flight of the ball--Greatly exaggerated notions--How
wind increases the effect of slicing and pulling--Playing through a
cross wind--The shot for a head wind--A special way of hitting the
ball--A long low flight--When the wind comes from behind.
Which is the master stroke in golf? That is an engaging question. Is it
the perfect drive, with every limb, muscle, and organ of the body
working in splendid harmony with the result of despatching the ball well
beyond two hundred yards in a straight line from the tee? No, it is not
that, for there are some thousands of players who can drive what is to
all intents and purposes a perfect ball without any unusual effort. Is
it the brassy shot which is equal to a splendid drive, and which,
delivering the ball in safety over the last hazard, places it nicely
upon the green, absolving the golfer from the necessity of playing any
other approach? No, though that is a most creditable achievement. Is it
the approach over a threatening bunker on to a difficult green where the
ball can hardly be persuaded to remain, yet so deftly has the cut been
applied, and so finely has the strength been judged, that it stops dead
against the hole, and for a certainty a stroke is saved? This is a most
satisfying shot which has in its time won innumerable holes, but it is
not the master stroke of golf. Then, is it the putt from the corner of
the green across many miniature hills and dales with a winding course
over which the ball must travel, often far away from the direct line,
but which carries it at last delightfully to the opening into which it
sinks just as its strength is ebbing away? We all know the thrilling
ecstasy that comes from such a stroke as this, but it has always been
helped by a little good luck, and I would not call it the master stroke.
There are inferior players who are good putters. Which, then, is the
master stroke? I say that it is the ball struck by any club to which a
big pull or slice is intentionally applied for the accomplishment of a
specific purpose which could not be achieved in any other way, and
nothing more exemplifies the curious waywardness of this game of ours
than the fact that the stroke which is the confounding and torture of
the beginner who does it constantly, he knows not how, but always to his
detriment, should later on at times be the most coveted shot of all, and
should then be the most difficult of accomplishment. I call it the
master shot because, to accomplish it with any certainty and perfection,
it is so difficult even to the experienced golfer, because it calls for
the most absolute command over the club and every nerve and sinew of the
body, and the courageous heart of the true sportsman whom no difficulty
may daunt, and because, when properly done, it is a splendid thing to
see, and for a certainty results in material gain to the man who played
it.
[Illustration: _PLATE XIV._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. STANCE WHEN PLAYING FOR A
SLICE]
[Illustration: _PLATE XV._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. TOP OF THE SWING WHEN
PLAYING FOR A SLICE]
[Illustration: _PLATE XVI._ DRIVER AND BRASSY. FINISH WHEN PLAYING FOR A
SLICE]
I will try, then, to give the golfers who desire them some hints as to
how by diligence and practice they may come to accomplish these master
strokes; but I would warn them not to enter into these deepest
intricacies of the game until they have completely mastered all ordinary
strokes with their driver or brassy and can absolutely rely upon them,
and even then the intentional pull and slice should only be attempted
when there is no way of accomplishing the purpose which is likely to be
equally satisfactory. Thus, when a long brassy shot to the green is
wanted, and one is most completely stymied by a formidable tree
somewhere in the foreground or middle distance, the only way to get to
the hole is by working round the tree, either from the right or from the
left, and this can be done respectively by the pull and the slice. Of
the two, the sliced shot is the easier, and is to be recommended when
the choice is quite open, though it must not be overlooked that the
pulled ball is the longer. The slicing action is not quite so quick and
sudden, and does not call for such extremely delicate accuracy as the
other, and therefore we will deal with it first.
The golfer should now pay very minute attention to the photographs (Nos.
XIV., XV., and XVI.) which were specially taken to illustrate these
observations. It will be noticed at once that I am standing very much
more behind
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