The Complete Golfer Part 7

When the situation of the bunkered ball is unusually hopeful, and there does really seem to be a very fair prospect of making a good long shot, I think it generally pays best to play straight at the hazard, putting just a little cut on the ball to help it to rise, and employing any club that suggests itself for the purpose. I think, in such circ.u.mstances, that it pays best to go straight for the hazard, because, if length is urgently demanded, what is the use of playing at an angle? Again, though there is undoubtedly an advantage gained by taking a bunker crossways, and thus giving the ball more time to rise, the advantage is often greatly exaggerated in the golfer's mind. When a ball is bunkered right on the edge of the green, it is sometimes best to try to pick it up not quite but almost cleanly with the niblick or mas.h.i.+e, in the hope that one more stroke afterwards will be sufficient either to win or halve the hole, whereas an ordinary shot with the niblick would not be likely to succeed so well. If, after due contemplation of all the heavy risks, it is decided to make such an attempt, the stroke should be played very much after the fas.h.i.+on of the mas.h.i.+e approach with cut. I need hardly say that such a shot is one of the most difficult the golfer will ever have occasion to attempt. The ordinary cut mas.h.i.+e stroke is hard to accomplish, but the cut niblick is harder still. I have already given directions for the playing of such shots, and the rest must be left to the golfer's daring and his judgment.

CHAPTER XIII

SIMPLE PUTTING

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 Champions.h.i.+p--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.

Putting in golf is a game within another game. While I am not prepared to endorse the opinion that is commonly expressed, that a golfer is born and not made, I am convinced that no amount of teaching will make a golfer hole out long putts with any frequency, nor will it even make him at all certain of getting the short ones down. But it will certainly put him in the right way of hitting the ball, which after all will be a considerable gain. Experience counts for very much, and it will convert a man who was originally a bad putter into one who will generally hold his own on the greens, or even be superior to the majority of his fellows. Even experience, however, counts for less in putting than in any other department of the game, and there are many days in every player's life when he realises only too sadly that it seems to count for nothing at all. Do we not from time to time see beginners who have been on the links but a single month, or even less than that, laying their long putts as dead as anybody could wish almost every time, and getting an amazing percentage of them into the tin itself? Often enough they seem to do these things simply because, as we should say, they know nothing at all about putting, which is perhaps another way of saying that their minds are never embarra.s.sed by an oppressive knowledge of all the difficulties which the ball will meet with in its pa.s.sage from the club to the hole, and of the necessity of taking steps to counteract them all. They are not afraid of the hole. The fact is that putting is to a far greater extent than most of us suspect purely a matter of confidence. When a man feels that he can putt he putts, and when he has a doubt about it he almost invariably makes a poor show upon the greens.

Do I not know to my cost what it is to feel that I cannot putt, and on those occasions to miss the most absurdly little ones that ever wait to be popped into the hole without a moment's thought or hesitation? It is surely the strangest of the many strange things in golf, that the old player, hero of many senior medal days, victor in matches over a hundred links, will at times, when the fortunes of an important game depend upon his action, miss a little putt that his ten-year-old daughter would get down nine times out of ten. She, dear little thing, does not yet know the terrors of the short putt. Sometimes it is the most nerve-breaking thing to be found on the hundred acres of a golf course. The heart that does not quail when a yawning bunker lies far ahead of the tee just at the distance of a good drive, beats in trouble when there are but thirty inches of smooth even turf to be run over before the play of the hole is ended. I am reminded of a story of Andrew Kirkaldy, who in his young days once carried for a young student of divinity who was most painfully nervous on the putting greens, and repeatedly lost holes in consequence.

When Andrew could stand this reckless waste of opportunities no longer, he exclaimed to his employer, "Man, this is awfu' wark. Ye're dreivin'

like a roarin' lion and puttin' like a puir kittlin'." But the men whose occupations are of the philosophical and peaceful kind are not the only ones who may be fairly likened to Andrew's "puir kittlin'" when there are short putts to be holed. Is there not the famous case of the Anglo-Indian sportsman, one of the mightiest of hunters, who feared nothing like the hole when it lay so near to him that his tears of agony might almost have fallen into it? It was this man who declared, "I have encountered all the manifold perils of the jungle, I have tracked the huge elephant to his destruction, and I have stood eye to eye with the man-eating tiger. And never once have I trembled until I came to a short putt." Yet with such facts as these before us, some people still wonder wherein lies the fascination of golf. How often does it happen that an inch on the putting green is worth more than a hundred yards in the drive, and that the best of players are confounded by this circ.u.mstance?

It is very nearly true, as Willie Park has so often said, that the man who can putt need fear n.o.body. Certainly a player can never be really great until he is nearly always certain to hole out in two putts on the green, and to get down a few in one. The approach stroke has been well played when the ball comes to rest within four or five feet of the pin, but what is the use of that unless the ball is to be putted out more often than not in one more stroke?

For the proper playing of the other strokes in golf, I have told my readers to the best of my ability how they should stand and where they should put their feet. But except for the playing of particular strokes, which come within the category of those called "fancy," I have no similar instruction to offer in the matter of putting. There is no rule, and there is no best way. Sometimes you see a player bend down and hold the putter right out in front of him with both wrists behind the shaft.

This is an eccentricity, but if the player in question believes that he can putt better in this way than in any other, he is quite justified in adopting it, and I would be the last to tell him that he is wrong. The fact is that there is more individuality in putting than in any other department of golf, and it is absolutely imperative that this individuality should be allowed to have its way. I believe seriously that every man has had a particular kind of putting method awarded to him by Nature, and when he putts exactly in this way he will do well, and when he departs from his natural system he will miss the long ones and the short ones too. First of all, he has to find out this particular method which Nature has a.s.signed for his use. There ought not to be much difficulty about this, for it will come unconsciously to his aid when he is not thinking of anybody's advice or of anything that he has ever read in any book on golf. That day the hole will seem as big as the mouth of a coal mine, and putting the easiest thing in the world. When he stands to his ball and makes his little swing, he feels as easy and comfortable and confident as any man can ever do. Yet it is probable that, so far as he knows, he is not doing anything special. It may happen that the very next day, when he thinks he is standing and holding his club and hitting the ball in exactly the same way, he nevertheless feels distinctly uncomfortable and full of nervous hesitation as he makes his stroke, and then the long putts are all either too short, or too long, or wide, and the little ones are missed.

I don't think that the liver or a pa.s.sing variation in temperament is altogether the cause of this. I believe it is because the man has departed even by a trifle from his own natural stance. A change of the position of the feet by even a couple of inches one way or the other may alter the stance altogether, and knock the player clean off his putting.

In this new position he will wriggle about and feel uncomfortable.

Everything is wrong. His coat is in the way, his pockets seem too full of old b.a.l.l.s, the feel of his stockings on his legs irritates him, and he is conscious that there is a nail coming up on the inside of the sole of his boot. It is all because he is just that inch or two removed from the stance which Nature allotted to him for putting purposes, but he does not know that, and consequently everything in the world except the true cause is blamed for the extraordinary things he does. A fair sample of many others was the clergyman who, having missed a short putt when playing in a match over a Glasgow links, espied in the distance on an eminence fully a quarter of a mile away from the green, an innocent tourist, who was apparently doing nothing more injurious to golf than serenely admiring the view. But the clerical golfer, being a man of quick temper, poured forth a torrent of abuse, exclaiming, "How could I hole the ball with that blockhead over there working his umbrella as if it were the pendulum of an eight-day clock!" When this is the kind of thing that is happening, I advise the golfer to try variations in his stance for putting, effecting the least possible amount of change at a time. There is a chance that at last he will drop into his natural stance, or something very near it, and even if he does not there is some likelihood that he will gain a trifle in confidence by the change, and that will count for much. And anyhow there is ample justification for any amount of manoeuvring of the body and the feet when one is off one's putting, for at the best, to make use of something like an Iris.h.i.+sm, the state of things is then hopelessly bad, and every future tendency must be in the way of improvement. There is one other suggestion to make to those golfers who believe what I say about the natural stance, and by this time it will have become more or less obvious to them. It is that when they are fairly on their putting, and are apparently doing all that Nature intended them to do, and are feeling contented in body and mind accordingly, they should take a sly but very careful look at their feet and body and everything else just after they have made a successful long putt, having felt certain all the time that they would make it. This examination ought not to be premeditated, because that would probably spoil the whole thing; and it usually happens that when one of these long ones has been successfully negotiated, the golfer is too much carried away by his emotions of delight to bring himself immediately to a sober and acute a.n.a.lysis of how it was done. But sometime he may remember to look into the matter, and then he should note the position of everything down to the smallest detail and the fraction of an inch, and make a most careful note of them for future reference. It will be invaluable. So, as I hold that putting is a matter of Nature and instinct, I make an exception this time to my rule in the matter of ill.u.s.trations, and offer to my readers no diagram with stance measurements. From the two photographs of myself putting in what I had every reason to believe at the time was my own perfectly natural stance, they may take any hints that they may discover.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _PLATE LVII._ PUTTING]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _PLATE LVIII._ PUTTING]

In the matter of putters, of which there is an infinite variety and a new one invented almost every month, I believe in a man playing with just that kind that he has most confidence in and which he fancies suits him best. Whether it is a plain gun-metal instrument, a crooked-necked affair, a putting cleek, an ordinary aluminium, a wooden putter, or the latest American invention, it is all the same; and if it suits the man who uses it, then it is the best putter in the world for him, and the one with which he will hole out most frequently. In no other sense is there such a thing as a best putter. The only semblance of a suggestion that I will presume to offer in this connection is, that for very long putts there is something to be said in favour of the wooden and aluminium putters, which seem to require less exertion than others, and to enable the player to regulate the strength of the stroke more exactly. For the shorter ones, I like the putting cleek best. But even these are matters of fancy, and what a great deal even the vaguest, most unreasoning belief in a putter has to do with the success with which it is manipulated I have as good a reason as anyone to understand, since I owe my first Champions.h.i.+p largely to the help of a putter which I had never used before, and which was really not a putter at all, but, as I have explained elsewhere, simply a little cleek which I picked up accidentally in a professional's shop on the eve of the struggle, and in which I had a new shaft fixed to my own liking. On that occasion I putted with this instrument as the winner of a champions.h.i.+p ought to putt, but I have never been able to do any good with it since, and in these days it is resting idly in my shop, useless but quite unpurchasable for any money. I do believe that it is a good thing to be the possessor of two putters, with both of which you have at one time or another done well, and in which you have unlimited confidence. Don't carry them both in the bag at the same time, but keep one safe in the locker, and when the day comes, as it surely will, when you are off your putting, take it out on to the links for the next round and see what you can do with it. Your weakness on the green may no more have been the fault of the other putter than the tourist was the cause of the clergyman missing the little one at Glasgow, but very much will be gained if you can persuade yourself that it was.

It is to a certain extent possible to be definite in remarking upon the grip. Some good golfers clasp their putters tightly with both hands; others keep the left hand loose and the right hand firm; and a third selection do the reverse, each method being justified on its day. But in this part of the game it is quite clear that the right hand has more work to do than the left. It is the right hand that makes the stroke, and therefore I consider that it should be allowed plenty of play, and that the left wrist should be held more loosely than the right. For my part I use the same overlapping grip in putting as in all the other strokes, making just this one small variation, that instead of allowing the right thumb to fall over the shaft, as when driving or playing through the green, I place it on the top of the shaft and pointing down it. This seems to me to make for accuracy.

In playing what we may call an ordinary putt, that is to say, one presenting no difficulties in the way of stymies, slopes of the green, or anything of that kind, I think it pays best in the long run to make a point of always. .h.i.tting the ball with the middle of the face of the club, although, I believe, Willie Park, one of the greatest of putters, always. .h.i.ts the ball off the toe of the club and comes in to the hole from the right-hand side of it. Other players consistently and by design half top the ball when they are putting. There should be no sharp hit and no jerk in the swing, which should have the even gentle motion of a pendulum. In the backward swing, the length of which, as in all other strokes in golf, is regulated by the distance it is desired to make the ball travel, the head of the putter should be kept exactly in the line of the putt. Accuracy will be impossible if it is brought round at all.

There should be a short follow-through after impact, varying, of course, according to the length of the putt. In the case of a long one, the club will go through much further, and then the arms would naturally be more extended. In the follow-through the putter should be kept well down, the bottom edge sc.r.a.ping the top of the gra.s.s for some inches. It is easy to understand how much more this course of procedure will tend towards the accuracy and delicacy of the stroke than the reverse method, in which the blade of the putter would be c.o.c.ked up as soon as the ball had left it.

Before I close my remarks on the simple putt, I feel that it is a duty to repeat once more those wise maxims relating to putting that have been uttered some tens of thousands of times already. "Never up, never in."

There is nothing so true, and the number of matches and medals that have been lost through the reckless and foolish disregard of this rule must be enormous. The hole will never come to you; therefore make up your mind that you will always go to the hole, and let it be an invariable practice to play for the back of the tin so that you will always have just a little in hand. The most deadly accuracy and the nicest calculations are all wasted if the ball is just half a turn short of the opening, and there is nothing in the whole of the play between one tee and the next more exasperating than the long putt which hesitates and stops on the very lip of the hole. There is another very good reason for always playing very well up to the hole, which may not have occurred to all golfers who read these lines. Suppose that in the exercise of this rule about always being up at any cost, too much has been put into the ball, and, refusing to die when it ought to do, it skips over the hole and comes to a standstill several inches beyond. "That's the result of being up!" exclaims the irritated golfer. But he feels at any rate that he has given the hole the chance for which it asked, and has a far greater sense of satisfaction and of duty done than if the ball had stopped a foot or more short of the place that was made for it. This may be the reason why an eighteen-inch or two-feet putt back to the hole from the far side always seems easier and is less frequently missed than a putt of the same distance from the original side, which is merely making up for the shortage in the first putt. Whether that is the reason or not, there is the fact, and though they may not have considered the matter hitherto, I feel confident that on reflection, or when they take note of future experiences, most of my readers will admit that this is so. It is a final argument for playing to the back of the hole and never being short. One of the greatest worries of the glorious life of old Tom Morris was that for a long time when in the middle of his career he was nearly always short with his long putts, and his son, young Tom, used wickedly to say that his father would be a great putter if the hole were always a yard nearer. Tom, I believe, was always conscious of his failing, and made the most strenuous efforts to correct it, and this only shows what a terrible and incurable habit this one of being short can become, and what necessity there is for the golfer to exercise his strength of mind to get rid of it in his early days, and establish the practice of being up every time. Often enough he will run over, but sometimes the kind hole will gobble the ball, and on the average he will gain substantially over the nervous, hesitating player who is always short.

CHAPTER XIV

COMPLICATED PUTTS

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 mas.h.i.+e on the putting green--Stymies--When they are negotiable and when not--The wisdom of playing for a half--Lofting over the stymie--Running through the stymie--How to play the stroke, and its advantages--Fast greens for fancy strokes--On gauging the speed of a green.

Now we will consider those putts in which it is not all plain sailing from the place where the ball lies to the hole. The line of the putt may be uphill or it may be downhill, or the green may slope all the way from one side to the other, or first from one and then the other. There is no end to the tricks and difficulties of a good sporting green, and the more of them the merrier. The golfer's powers of calculation are now in great demand.

Take, to begin with, one of the most difficult of all putts--that in which there is a more or less p.r.o.nounced slope from one side or the other, or a mixture of the two. In this case it would obviously be fatal to putt straight at the hole. Allowances must be made on one side or the other, and sometimes they are very great allowances too. I have found that most beginners err in being afraid of allowing sufficiently for the slope. They may convince themselves that in order to get near the hole their ball should be a yard or so off the straight line when it is half-way along its course, and yet, at the last instant, when they make the stroke their nerve and resolution seem to fail them, and they point the ball but a few inches up the slope, with the result that before it reaches the hole it goes running away on the other side and comes to a standstill anything but dead. Putting practice on undulating greens is very valuable, not so much because it teaches the golfer exactly what allowance he should make in various cases, but because it helps by experience to give him the courage of his convictions. It is impossible to give any directions as to the precise allowance that should be made, for the simple reason that this varies in every case. The length of the putt, the degree of slope, and the speed of the green, are all controlling factors. The amount of borrow, as we term it, that must be taken from the side of any particular slope is entirely a matter of mathematical calculation, and the problem will be solved to satisfaction most frequently by the man who trains himself to make an accurate and speedy a.n.a.lysis of the controlling factors in the limited amount of time available for the purpose. The putt is difficult enough when there is a p.r.o.nounced slope all the way from one particular side, but the question is much more puzzling when it is first one and then the other and then perhaps a repet.i.tion of one or both. To begin with, there may be a slope of fifteen degrees from the right, so the ball must go away to the right. But a couple of yards further on this slope may be transformed into one of thirty degrees the other way, and after a short piece of level running the original slope, but now at twenty degrees, is reverted to. What in the name of golf is the line that must be taken in a tantalising case of this kind? It is plain that the second slope if it lasts as long as the first one more than neutralises it, being steeper, so that instead of borrowing from the first one we must start running down it in order to tackle the second one in good time. But the third slope again, to some extent, though not entirely, neutralises the second, and this entirely upsets the calculation which only included the first two. It is evident that the first and third hold the advantage between them, and that in such a case as this we should send the ball on its journey with a slight borrow from the first incline with which it had to contend. As I have just said, in these complicated cases it is a question of reckoning pure and simple, and then putting the ball in a straightforward manner along the line which you have decided is the correct one.

But there are times when a little artifice may be resorted to, particularly in the matter of applying a little cut to the ball. There is a good deal of billiards in putting, and the cut stroke on the green is essentially one which the billiard player will delight to practise.

But I warn all those who are not already expert at cutting with the putter, to make themselves masters of the stroke in private practice before they attempt it in a match, because it is by no means easy to acquire. The chief difficulty that the golf student will encounter in attempting it will be to put the cut on as he desires, and at the same time to play the ball with the proper strength and keep on the proper line. It is easy enough to cut the ball, but it is most difficult, at first at all events, to cut it and putt it properly at the same time.

For the application of cut, turn the toe of the putter slightly outwards and away from the hole, and see that the face of the club is kept to this angle all the way through the stroke. Swing just a trifle away from the straight line outwards, and the moment you come back on to the ball draw the club sharply across it. It is evident that this movement, when properly executed, will give to the ball a rotary motion, which on a perfectly level green would tend to make it run slightly off to the right of the straight line along which it was aimed. Here, then, the golfer may arm himself with an accomplishment which may frequently prove of valuable service. He may dodge a stymie or circ.u.mvent an inconvenient piece of the green over which, without the cut, the ball would have to travel. But most frequently will the accomplished putter find the cut of use to him when there is a p.r.o.nounced slope of the green from the right-hand side of the line of the putt. In applying cut to the ball in a case of this kind, we are complicating the problem by the introduction of a fourth factor to the other three I have named, but at the same time we are diminis.h.i.+ng the weight of these others, since we shall enable ourselves to putt more directly at the hole. Suppose it is a steep but even slope all the way from the ball to the hole. Now, if we are going to putt this ball in the ordinary manner without any spin on it, we must borrow a lot from the hill, and, as we shall at once convince ourselves, the ball must be at its highest point when it is just half-way to the hole. But we may borrow from the slope in another way than by running straight up it and straight down again. If we put cut on the ball, it will of itself be fighting against the hill the whole way, and though if the angle is at all p.r.o.nounced it may not be able to contend against it without any extra borrow, much less will be required than in the case of the simple putt up the hill and down again. Now it must be borne in mind that it is a purely artificial force, as it were, that keeps the ball from running down the slope, and as soon as the run on the ball is being exhausted and the spin at the same time, the tendency will be not for the ball to run gradually down the slope--as it did in the case of the simple putt without cut--but to surrender to it completely and run almost straight down. Our plan of campaign is now indicated. Instead of going a long way up the hill out of our straight line, and having but a very vague idea of what is going to be the end of it all, we will neutralise the effect of the slope as far as possible by using the cut and aim to a point much lower down the hill--how much lower can only be determined with knowledge of the particular circ.u.mstances, and after the golfer has thoroughly practised the stroke and knows what he can do with it. And instead of settling upon a point half-way along the line of the putt as the highest that the ball shall reach, this summit of the ascent will now be very much nearer to the hole, quite close to it in fact. We putt up to this point with all the spin we can get on the ball, and when it reaches it the forward motion and the rotation die away at the same time, and the ball drops away down the hill, and, as we hope, into the hole that is waiting for it close by. Now, after all this explanation, it may really seem that by using the cut in a case of this kind we are going about the job in the most difficult manner, but when once the golfer has made himself master of this cut stroke, and has practised this manner of attacking slopes, he will speedily convince himself that it is the easier and more reliable method--certainly more reliable. It seems to be a great advantage to be able to keep closer to the straight line, and the strength can be more accurately gauged. The diagram which I have drawn on this page shows relatively the courses taken by b.a.l.l.s played in the two different styles, and will help to explain my meaning.

The slope is supposed to be coming from the top of the page, as it were, and the plain curved line is the course taken by the ball which has had no cut given to it, while that which is dotted is the line of the cut ball. I am giving them both credit for having been played with the utmost precision, so that they would find their way to the tin. I submit all these remarks as an idea, to be followed up and elaborated in much practice, rather than as a definite piece of instruction, for the variety of circ.u.mstances is so bewildering that a fixed rule is impossible.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PUTTING WITH CUT ON A SLOPING GREEN.]

One of the putting problems which strike most fear into the heart of the golfer is when his line from the ball to the hole runs straight down a steep slope, and there is some considerable distance for the ball to travel along a fast green. The difficulty in such a case is to preserve any control over the ball after it has left the club, and to make it stop anywhere near the hole if the green is really so fast and steep as almost to impart motion of itself. In a case of this sort I think it generally pays best to hit the ball very nearly upon the toe of the putter, at the same time making a short quick twitch or draw of the club across the ball towards the feet. Little forward motion will be imparted in this manner, but there will be a tendency to half lift the ball from the green at the beginning of its journey, and it will continue its way to the hole with a lot of drag upon it. It is obvious that this stroke, to be played properly, will need much practice in the first place and judgment afterwards, and I can do little more than state the principle upon which it should be made. But oftentimes, when the slope of the green is really considerable, and one experiences a sense of great risk and danger in using the putter at all, I strongly advise the use of the iron or mas.h.i.+e; indeed, I think most golfers chain themselves down too much to the idea that the putter, being the proper thing to putt with, no other club should be used on the green. There is no law to enforce the use of the putter, but even when the idea sometimes occurs to a player that it would be best to use his mas.h.i.+e on the green in particular circ.u.mstances, he usually rejects it as improper. On a steep incline it pays very well to use a mas.h.i.+e, for length in these circ.u.mstances can often be judged very accurately, and, the ball having been given its little pitch to begin with, does not then begin to roll along nearly so quickly as if the putter had been acting upon it. There are times, even when the hole is only a yard away, when it might pay best to ask for the mas.h.i.+e instead of the instrument which the caddie will offer.

Upon the very difficult and annoying question of stymies there are few hints that I can offer which will not suggest themselves to the player of a very little experience. The fact which must be driven home is that some stymies are negotiable and others are not--not by any player or by any method. When the ball that stymies you dead is lying on the lip of the hole and half covering it, and your own is some distance away, the case is, to all intents and purposes, hopeless, but if you have only got this one stroke left for the half, you feel that an effort of some kind must be made, however hopeless it may be. The one chance--and even that is not always given--is to pa.s.s the other ball so very closely that yours will touch the rim of the hole and then, perhaps, if it is travelling slowly enough, be influenced sufficiently to tumble in. Luck must necessarily have a lot to do with the success of a stroke of this kind, and the one consolation is that, if it fails, or if you knock the other ball in--which is quite likely--things will be no worse than they appeared before you took the stroke. If, in the case of a dead and hopeless stymie of this kind, you had two strokes for the half and one for the hole, I should strongly advise you to give up all thoughts of holing out, and make quite certain of being dead the first time and getting the half. Many golfers are so carried away by their desire to s.n.a.t.c.h the hole from a desperate position of this sort, that they throw all prudence to the winds, attempt the impossible, and probably lose the hole at the finish instead of halving it. They may leave themselves another stymie, they may knock the other ball in, or they may be anything but dead after their first stroke,--indeed, it is when defying their fate in this manner that everything is likely to happen for the worst.

The common method of playing a stymie is by pitching your ball over that of your opponent, but this is not always possible. All depends on how near the other ball is to the hole, and how far the b.a.l.l.s are apart. If the ball that stymies you is on the lip and your own is three yards away, it is obvious that you cannot pitch over it. From such a distance your own ball could not be made to clear the other one and drop again in time to fall into the tin. But, when an examination of the situation makes it clear that there is really s.p.a.ce enough to pitch over and get into the hole, take the most lofted club in your bag--either a highly lofted mas.h.i.+e or even a niblick--and when making the little pitch shot that is demanded, apply cut to the ball in the way I have already directed, and aim to the left-hand side of the tin. The stroke should be very short and quick, the blade of the club not pa.s.sing through a s.p.a.ce of more than nine inches or a foot. The cut will make the ball lift quickly, and, with the spin upon it, it is evident that the left-hand side of the hole is the proper one to play to. Everything depends upon the measurements of the situation as to whether you ought to pitch right into the hole or to pitch short and run in, but in any case you should pitch close up, and in a general way four or five inches would be a fair distance to ask the ball to run. When your own ball is many yards away from the hole, and the one that makes the stymie is also far from it as well as far from yours, a pitch shot seems very often to be either inadequate or impossible. Usually it will be better to aim at going very near to the stymie with the object of getting up dead, making quite certain at the same time that you do not bungle the whole thing by hitting the other ball, or else to play to the left with much cut, so that with a little luck you may circle into the hole. Evidently the latter would be a somewhat hazardous stroke to make.

There is one other way of attacking a stymie, and that is by the application of the run-through method, when the ball in front of you is on the edge of the hole and your own is very close to it--only just outside the six inches limit that makes the stymie. If the b.a.l.l.s are much more than a foot apart, the "follow-through method" of playing stymies is almost certain to fail. This system is nothing more than the follow-through shot at billiards, and the principles upon which the strokes in the two games are made are much the same. Hit your own ball very high up,--that is to say, put all the top and run on it that you can, and strike the other ball fairly in the centre and fairly hard. The object is to knock the stymie right away over the hole, and to follow through with your own and drop in. If you don't hit hard enough you will only succeed in holing your opponent's ball and earning his sarcastic thanks. And if you don't get top enough on your own ball you will not follow through, however hard you bang up against the other. This is a very useful stroke to practise, for the particular kind of stymie to which it applies occurs very frequently, and is one of the most exasperating of all.

Most of these fancy putting strokes stand a very poor chance of success on a very slow green. Cut and top and all these other niceties will not work on a dull one. It is the sharp, fiery green that comes to the rescue of the resourceful golfer in circ.u.mstances such as we have been discussing. It seems to me that golfers in considering their putts very often take too little pains to come to an accurate determination of the speed of the greens. There are a score of changing circ.u.mstances which affect that speed, but it frequently happens that only a casual glance is given to the state of the turf, and the rest of the time is spent in considering the distance and the inclines that have to be contended against. The golfer should accustom himself to making a minute survey of the condition of things. Thus, to how many players does it occur that the direction in which the mowing machine has been pa.s.sed over it makes an enormous difference to the speed of the particular piece of the green that has to be putted over? All the blades of gra.s.s are bent down in the direction that the machine has taken, and their points all face that way. Therefore the ball that is being putted in the opposite direction encounters all the resistance of these points, and in the aggregate this resistance is very considerable. On the other hand, the ball that has to be putted in the same direction that the machine went has an unusually smooth and slippery surface to glide over. It is very easy to see which way the machine has gone. On a newly-cut green there are stripes of different shades of green. The points of the gra.s.s give the deeper tints, and therefore the machine has been coming towards you on the dark stripes, and along them you must putt harder than on the others.

The variety of the circ.u.mstances to be taken into consideration render putting on undulating greens very attractive to the man who makes a proper and careful study of this part of the game, as every player ought to do.

CHAPTER XV

SOME GENERAL HINTS

Too much golf--a.n.a.lysis of good strokes--One's att.i.tude 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.

The following are detached suggestions, each of which, I think, is of value and importance. In most cases they are such as I have not had an opportunity of making in any other chapter; but in a few others they are repet.i.tions of former injunctions, for the sake of further emphasis:--

Don't play too much golf if you want to get on in the game. Three rounds a day are too much for any man, and if he makes a practice of playing them whenever he has the opportunity, his game is sure to suffer. He often says that his third round is the best of the day. But what about the first next morning? Two rounds a day are enough, and these two rounds on three days of the week are as much golf as is good for any player who does not want to become careless and stale.

Remember that the player who first settles down to the serious business of a hard match has the advantage. In a majority of cases concentrated purpose is the secret of victory.

You must be thoughtful if you want to get on in golf. Most players when they make an exceptionally good stroke gaze delightedly at the result, and then begin to talk about it to their opponent and the caddie. They rarely give a thought as to exactly how they did it, though it must be obvious that for that good result to have been obtained the stroke must have been played in a particularly correct and able manner. Unless by pure accident, no good ever comes of a bad stroke. When you have made a really wonderfully good shot--for you--bring yourself up sharply to find out exactly how you did it. Notice your stance, your grip, and try to remember the exact character of the swing that you made and precisely how you followed through. Then you will be able to do the same thing next time with great confidence. Usually when a player makes a really bad stroke you see him trying the swing over again--without the ball--wondering what went wrong. It would pay him much better to do the good strokes over again in the same way every time he makes them, so as to impress the method of execution firmly upon his mind.

Don't praise your own good shots. Leave that function to your partner, who, if a good sort, will not be slow in performing it. His praise will be more discriminating and worth more than yours. And don't say spiteful and unkind things about his good shots, or be continually talking about his luck. If you do he will hate you before the game is over.