PKilevdclpKiec CK^Pcnix PublUKirvg Compaq Copyright 1900 by imk Penn Publishing Company £duc- Psych. Librarx V CONTENTS. OHAPTER PAGH I. Historical a II. Implements 26 III. Educational 40 IV. Links 80 V. Golfers and Styles. 102 VI. Match Play 120 VII. Handicapping 125 VIII. The Rules 157 IX. Etiquette of Golf 172 Glossary 174 .1.31 £ GOLF CHAPTER I HISTORICAL "When Scotland gave to England the rather dubious blessing of her Scottish kings, she gave therewith a gift which was an undoubted boon : the game of golf. For very many years England was more blind to the merits of the game than of the Stuarts. The Scottish Court, taking its country leisure at Greenwich, recreated itself for the toils of government by playing golf on Black- heath. If Blackheath was as flinty then as it is to-day, that fact may partly excuse and explain their governing so badly. It does not seem, however, that golf was of in- digenous growth in Scotland. So far back as the date of James VI., we find an Act of the Scottish Parliament forbidding the importation of Dutch- 5 6 ooir made golf-halls as injurious to native industry. This stringent protectionist measure shows that the game must have been largely cultivated by the Mynheers, but its records are hard to trace. Here and there wo come on a picture — there is one by Van der Veldt in the National Gallery — or od an old Dutch tile, representing the game, usually on the ice. But this was not an exclu- sively glacial epoch of the game, for there is an account, often quoted before, in an old book named u Les Contes du Eoi Cambrinus," by one Charles Deulin, of a game named chole, a bastard species of golf played in French Flanders, lie represents it as a wry popular game. In his tale one Roger, a wheelwright, is so great a player that in all the country round he is known aa " le grand choleur." But we cannot think that he exactly played the game, for he had a wonderful el iih given him by no less a person than St. An- tony. St. Antony was thus generous in return for some small matter of smith's work which Roger did for him, and besides giving him the wonderful elnb, he granted him two boons — one, thai n<> <>' • who s;it on the stump of the elm tree in front of nit hy should be able to move \\ it h- ont his leave*, and the other, that no one who stood on ;i certain square patch of carpet should Historical 7 be moved therefrom against his will. So Roger beat every one at chole, including the Devil, from whom he won a whole sackful of souls. When death at length came for Roger, the " grand choleur " asked the monarch to take a seat for a moment on the elm trunk — whence he did not permit him to stir until he had covenanted for a hundred years longer of life. So again he golfed and beat all comers. When the hundred years were up Death called again and took Roger with him to Purgatory. Here the Devil declined to receive one whom he knew so well. " Why," said Diabolos, " he would depopulate my king- dom. He has won heaps of souls from me already." Death was much perplexed where to bestow Roger. The latter suggested that they should try heaven. Death laughed, but said it was no harm trying, though he was sure Roger Id not be admitted. St. Peter supported Death's view, when they arrived at the portal, but as a favor allowed Roger to come inside the gate for a moment in order to talk to St. Antony, whereupon Roger clapped down his square of carpet, and since they could not move him they wore forced to let him stay. Perhaps this account may not be strictly accu- rate, but it is remarkable as describing a game S Golf which is clearly a transition phase between hockey and golf. Chole, in fact, is a sort of missing link. It proceeded in this fashion. If Tom Morris and Hugh Kirkaldy were ffoins- to play a match at chole they would first fix on an object which was to be hit. A church door some live miles distant, cross country, seems to have been a favorite goal. This settled on, match-making began — a kind of game of brag, "I will hack myself to hit the thing in five innings," Tom might say. (We will explain in a moment what an "innings" meant.) " Oh, I'll back myself to hit it in four," Hugh might an- swer. tv Well ; Til say three, then," Tom might perhaps say, and that might be the finish of the bragging, for Hugh might not feel it in his power to do it in two, so he must let Tom try. Then Tom would hit oil", and when he came to the ball would t< i e it and hit again, and so a third time. lint wln-n they Peached the hall this third time, it would he no longer Tom's turn to hit, hut Bugh's. Ih' would be Allowed to tee the ball up to dechole, as it was called -that, is to say, to hit it hack- again as far as he could. Then Tom would begin again and have three more shots to- es wards the object ; after which Hugh would again have one shot back. Then, if in the course of his Ibistorical & third innings of three shots Tom were to hit the church door he would win the match — if he failed, he would lose it. This was the game, then, which Roger, by favor of St. Antony, played so well. Both played with one ball — there was a choleur and a decholeur; a server and a striker oat as one might say — and in this humorous tale (which we owe to a transla- tion by Miss Bruce in "Longman's Magazine") we find a very important chapter in the history of the evolution of golf. At the club-house of the Royal Wimbledon Golf Club there is one of the clubs which they appear still to use in Flanders. It looks as if it were meant for digging up whins with, but Zola says that they drive about four hundred yards with these clubs — he must mean on the ice, if he is really a realist. The history of Scottish golf is written chiefly in terms of a wine merchant's catalogue. There are long lists in the Club records of magnums of claret lost or won on the links. Also its history is largely written in Sabbatarian or patriotic en- actments of the Scottish Parliament. You were not to play golf on a Sabbath unless you had been to Church in the morning. (They are not so scrupulous at Sandwich now.) Altogether golf was looked on with disfavor by the author- 10 <3olf itieSj who deemed that " shooting at the butts " — in old-fashioned spelling — was more helpful for a nation's liberties than "golf and foot-ball." But golf, like other things, throve on persecution. It was all very well for parliaments to enact that golf and foot-ball be " utterly cryit down," but the Stuart kings were but the more disposed to play on that account — sometimes in partnership with humble men, such as " one Patersone, a shoemaker." All this went on before the days of gutta- percha. Men played with " feather balls" — that is, balls of leather stufTed so tightly with feathers that when taken out the feathers tilled a hat. The makers used to press the feathers in with a wooden pin fastened in a piece of board. They pressed against the board with their chests in order to cram the feathers in the more tightly. It is said that this induced a pulmonary com- plainl perhaps it would have been better, after all to have let Dutchmen make the golf-balls. Coming down to days of which our records are more accurate, we find that the feather golf-balls Used to cost four shillings— a vast, sum in those days. Men played much with " baffy spoons " made by Eugh Philp, because if y<>u >pped a ball with the iron, four shillings wei'e gone for- Historical 11 ever. No man who respected himself ever played with a club of another maker than Philp, nor in less dignified clothes than a tall hat, swallow- tailed coat and knee breeches. These were the days of the grand old manner. They had a cer- tain number of iron clubs — one, certainly, the u sand iron " as it was called. It resembled the heavy iron of to-day, but differed from it in having a concave face, like the latter-day niblick, or Park's patent lofter. Specimens of strange old golfing weapons are kept under a glass case at the Club-house of the Royal and Ancient of St. Andrews. Of Scottish golf, the oldest ade- quate records are those of St. Andrews, and of the Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers who played at Musselburgh. These courses must have been a great deal narrower then than now. Trampling by the human foot and attack by the golfer's niblick have worn away the whins which beset these links, until they are almost any breadth. AVe are told fearful tales of the whins of the past. Other evidences are not lacking of the greater horrors of golf at that epoch. Tso man would go to theology, and waste his vocab- ularv now in giving to the bunker which we get into going to the long-hole-coming-home at St. Andrews, such a desperate name as "hell." Yet 12 (3olf that is the title by which it is so well known to us, though there is often fine lying in the bottom. And this name was given before theologians had done so much as they now have towards cooling our conceptions of that undesirable place. Pan- demonium, at Musselburgh, is still horrid, but no one need get into it. In what we know of the golf of the past Ave see several differences from our own golf, which no doubt have arisen from the greater narrowness of courses. Allen Robert- son, a small man, but of little less fame in golf mythology than Hercules, used habitually to drive from the tee, going to the heathery hole with a short spoon. This took him nicely over Walkinshaw's bunker and laid him short of the bunkers beyond. But he could scarcely have got home with his second. The methods to-day are different. We drive to the right or to the left of the second lot of bunkers and so are home without trouble in two. In Allan Robertson's lime there were whins, both to left and right, and there was but one holeoneach putting-green, each h<>le being played twice — onee going out and onee coming home. This single instance is an illustration of a tendency. All that we have from our golfing fore fathers —the dubs they used, the predominance in their maxims of the sure Historical 13 over the far — everything goes to tell us that golf was a more exact science then, that accuracy was more precious then, as compared with length, than it is now. For those clubs which Hugh Philp made so well and which Allan Robertson played with so well are so light and delicate that the slogging scratch-player of to-day regards them — with reverence, it is true, as curious — but as toys for the practical uses of the game. There is no doubt that there were very good players then. The role of the laudator temporis acti is very graceful and tempting, but facts tell us this — that Allan Robertson was regarded as the best player of his day, and that " Old Tom Morris," who was playing at the same time, has, even as an old man, played very fine golf. Whether Allan was really a finer player than Tom is a hard matter to decide. They played no set matches, but in their friendly matches Tom had the better of it ; had he had his way he would dearly have liked a real set-to with Allan. "We can only speculate. Certainly Allan's pres- tige was very great. Then George Glennie's score of 88, which for so many years was the amateurs' record in a St. Andrews competition, is a figure which is quite likely to win a St. An- drews medal to-day. It ought not to ; but now U Golt and again it does. Of course the lies are not nearly so good as they were before there was so much play ; but Hugh Kirkcaldy cannot have got into many bad lies when he made his record round of 73 — nor can Andrew, his brother, when, more recently, he did the round in Ttt. Be that as it may though, we think most people will agree with us in this, at all events — that amateur play has much improved lately, as compared with professional play. And from the general point of view it is hard to think but that the play all round must be better. Certainly clubs and balls are better, many more people play, and we are not aware that human beings have appreciably deteriorated. In all other games there has been an advance ; it seems unlikely that golf can be the sole exception. But all the while that Scotland had been golf- ing, no one in England had more than heard of the game, unless he had gone north of the Tweed, which few people then did, or to Blackheath, which yet fewer did; for not only did the Scot- tish game survive the Scottish kings who intro- duced it, but of all golf clubs that at Blackheath, where the Stuarts played, has the oldest records. This is a glory which can never be taken from it — until some one unearths the authentic records Ibfstoncal 15 of the club match in which Cardinal Beaton took sides against the devil — though with less success than Flemish Roger with St. Antony's Club. was called, at Black heath, are inextricably mixed up with the records of a yet older club there — the Knuckle Club. Eventually the two merged, so far as one makes out, and what was the Golf Club in summer became the Knuckle Club in the winter. From their records it would seem that they were thirsty souls — these knuckling and golfing Blackheathens — as other golfers since have been. But where all our golf would have been without them, no one, humanly speaking, knows ; for when first a St. Andrews man came to Westward Ho ! and saw its mighty capabilities as a golf links, it was from Blackheath that most of the men came to play on it and to let its ex- istence be known. That redoubtable Mr. George Glennie came down and won the medal as often as he liked. But from that moment golf began to " boom." It did not boom very quickly at first, but Westward Ho ! taught men at Liver- pool to look favorably on a rabbit-warreny place which has since become the Iloylake Golf Links and "raised" Mr. "Johnnie Ball." About the same time it occurred to the London Scottish Yol- 16 Golf unteers that Wimbledon Common — their head- quarter camp — was a possible place to play golf on. This clnb soon so grew and multiplied that the iron house which is the volunteer shelter became inadequate, and a secession of the plebs resulted in the purchase of the present house of the Royal Wimbledon Golf Club at the other end of the Common. Meanwhile the old London Scottish Club still plays from the Putney end ; and it is creditable to all concerned that the con- sequent collisions are so few. Still, men with golf-clubs were a rarity at any railway station or ordinary place of meeting in England — there was a lull in the " boom." Gutta-percha had been invented, and for a shil- ling could be bought a better ball than the four- shilling feather thing which the men in swallow- tailed coats and high hats used to play with ; but still the Englishman and the cricketer regarded as a fool anyone who was incautious enough to call himself a golfer. But by slow, slow degrees a spirit of toleration crept in. It began to be observed that some men who admittedly were no fools played golf. Finally, Englishmen and cricketers began to suspect themselves of folly that they had not played golf before. Inaword, golf became the fashion — golf is now the fashion. Historical 17 Golf clubs sprang up in the most unlikely places — golf links were started on the most unpromis- ing ground. Fine meadow land, unredeemed jungle, stony and blasted heaths— every scrap of ground on which there was room for driving a golf-ball was put to that purpose and called a golf links. Men play golf to-day on places at which the imagination — if he had any — of the old golfer would have been paralyzed. AVe have, ourselves, played on a common whereon, after the tee-shot, the niblick was the only possible weapon ; and this was true, even of the putting-greens. But when w T e mentioned this to the enthusiastic old golfer who had started golf there he said, ter- rified — " Hush, hush ! For goodness' sake don't let the other members hear you say that ! They have never played anywhere else, and they think it is splendid." That is exactly how it is. Most of these poor people have never played anywhere else, and so they do not mind it. It is just what is said of canaries — they can be happy in a cage because they have never been out of one. So that, far from pitying these folk, it is impossible to do otherwise than envy them — these satis leati who know nothing of St. Andrews and Westward Ho ! and Sandwich. For besides these bush-whack- 2 18 Golf ing and stone-breaking courses, the new spirit of English golf exploited courses which were really golf links. Enough for Sandwich that the dele- gates for the Amateur Championship selected it for the arena of that contest in 1S02. Its excel- lence requires no other testimony. Littlestone, again, is an excellent English links, and so are Felixstowe and Great Yarmouth. One of the latest finds is Brancaster — a right royal links. ] 3ut even to enumerate the links in England might fill a small book, while in Scotland, too— its ancient stronghold — the game has been spreading with increasing popularity. It lias spread until nearly every blade of grass has been hacked off that un- fortunate St. Andrews Links, whither so many golfing pilgrims annually wend. Nor is St. Andrews peculiar. From Kirkwall down to Land's End one can scarcely put one's linger on a bit of the map which does not cover a golf-links. They have golf-links — and real good ones — in Ireland. Not an English colony is without them — from Japan and all the Shiny East to Australia and New Zealand, and back to Egypt, Malta and the Riviera, or westward again to Canada. Lately, moreover, there has been a demand tor profes- sional green-keepers for America, — "and most likely' 1 wrote the applicant, "we shall want Historical 19 many, for there seems to be a regular golf bliz- zard setting in here." j The wonder is, chiefly, not that golf should have " boomed," but that it should have been so long in " booming." England had seen golf in occasional places for years before she began to take the interest in it which it deserves. Golf and tennis probably divide between them the honors of being" the most ancient of athletic games. There is reference in the "Arabian Nights " to something which may have been polo, though the translator calls the weapon used in the game a golf-club. More probably the game was an equestrian one of some sort, y But England, in assimilating Scotland's game, has somewhat altered it in the process. There used to be something so grand and dignified about it when men used to play in swallow-tails and high hats ; and in Scotland a portion of that high and noble spirit broods over the game still. But the Englishman did not accept the game as an inheritance with all its traditions. He took it up rather as a parvenu who has purchased a house from aristocratic owners. lie came in with the spirit of cricket possessing him, and plays golf with less than Scottish solemnity. He is known to laugh when his adversary makes a 20 <3otf bad stroke — he sometimes plays in flannels, and takes his coat off — he often runs after the ball, frequently shouts at it, and almost invariably counts his score. This last is regarded as his capital offense by the antiquaries. They say that match-play by holes is the real game of golf ■ — that score-play is but a device for bringing to- gether a number of competitors. Of course this is perfectly true, but why a man should not put down his strokes if he pleases, to give him an added interest to the interest of the match, is hard to see. Of course, he should not keep back other players by insisting on holeing out after all chance of his halving the hole has vanished This is annoying both to the man with whom he is playing and to those behind. But if he is in- terfering with no man's time or pleasure, why should lie not count his strokes if it pleases him? It is hard to think that it will please him, be- cause most of those who put down their score on paper go round in numbers which can give pleasure only to their opponents. Doubtless, however, the score-keeping is an index of prog- ress - or the reverse — and with the qualifica- tions which we have mentioned, we fail to see any Legitimate ground of complaint with the practise. JJut it is only early in the golfer's career that he Ibtetovfcal 21 will find it necessary to carry pencil and paper for this purpose. When he has arrived at any steadiness of game at all he will find it quite suf- ficient to settle in his mind on a figure which he shall take as his average for each hole, and to reckon his score by saying to himself " that is one," or " two," or whatever it may be, " above or below the average." Say the player takes six strokes a hole for his hypothetical average — then, if he does the first hole in 7, he will say, "that makes me one above the average — say he now does the second hole in 5, and so be, on that hole, one below the average, he will reckon on this one to the good against his previous one to the bad and say, " that makes me even with the average " — and so forth. Of course, this sort of thing will not do for competitions, but for a man's personal satisfaction it will be found quite ade- quate, and it is simplicity itself. Also, in taking up golf, the Englishman has gone in for handicap competitions to an extent which is an abhorrence to the old school. Yery likely they are right, but on the other side it must be said that, as a rule, Englishmen bet less on matches than the Scottish golfers seem to have done. The old school talks a deal about the " pot-hunting" which goes on on English links ; 22 ©olf but though there is a degree of truth in it, it must be borne in mind that the pot is generally of very moderate value. Scarcely ever will the value of it pay the hotel bill and traveling ex- penses of him who is engaged in its chasse. People do not really go to competition meetings nearly so much for the sake of the prizes as be- cause they know that they will meet a number of their friends, and get a lot of pleasant matches. The objectionable spirit of " pot-hunting " enters into the business very little. If the prizes were principally scratch-prizes they would be of interest to a very select few, com- paratively speaking. At St. Andrews, until a very few years ago, there were no handicap prizes at all, nor was there any sweepstakes associated with the medal. Probably it may be true to say that there was no handicap prize in Scotland. Now theirname is legion. The medal given to the St. Andrews Club by King William IV. used to be the highest honor (excepting the Open Cham- pionship) that an amateur golfer could win, as representing success in the best, field. Now the Amateur Championship has taken its place by instituting a competition open <<> a much wider field. But the posit ion taken up by theold school is not quite defensible. They truly say that the Historical 23 game used to be entirely a game of match-play ; that handicap prizes were practically unknown. This is quite true ; but it does not follow, as they appear to assume, that the game must necessarily remain such as they played it. "We say this, though of our personal preference we are with them in their love of the match and dislike of the handicap ; but for all that, if men like playing for prizes under handicap we can see nothing wicked in their doing so. While penning these lines there has come to hand a copy of the Melbourne Age, containing an account of the presentation of prizes to the members of the Melbourne Golf Club by their President, Sir James Macbain. Plainly, this an- tipodean golf club is in a highlj r flourishing con- dition. By the same post a correspondent en- closes a cutting, headed " Golf a la Francaise," and running thus : " Under the heading of ' A New English Game,' a popular Paris newspaper writes as follows : — ' It is called " Le Golf ," and resembles both "crockett" and lawn-tennis. Its special feature consists in the use of a ball, a sort of marble, extremely small, which is struck by a mallet. One element of the game consists in the erection of a little mound, recalling the pastime of i4 forteresses " played with marbles in our young days. " Le Golf," which is indulged in especially by those persons whom lawn-tennis, with 24 Oolt its obligation to keep on running about continually, soon fatigues, is at present the favorite amusement in the suburbs of London. Backed up bj T our Anglomania, it will be the rage this summer in our parks and country houses, and, as it does not require a large space of ground, in our gardens and villas.' " It is very satisfactory to find such authoritative testimony to the probability of the success of the game in France. If, however, the French play with anything of their national elan, and drive, as M. Zola tells ns they do, four hundred yards, the introduction of the game is likely to be of much benefit to the glazier trade (to say nothing of the surgical profession) in the neighborhood of " our gardens and villas." Some ladies play remarkably well ; bufe this is, perhaps, but a mo- tive the more for the unwillingness of men to let them share in the game on equal terms. The superior sex points out that the full swing is ungraceful for ladies. But they should remember that in most cases the swing which they jnstly condemn as ungraceful was learned by ladies when no longer children. Now, it is well known that no man acquires a graceful style unless he Learned the game as a boy ; therefore it is unjust to expect grace from a lady who learned after arriving at years of discretion. On the other hand, ladies who began golf as children have, in Ibistorfcal 25 point of fact, exceedingly neat and graceful swings — so that the contention falls to the ground. And all the chief elements of delight in the game — its science, its leisureliness, and its healthful exercise — make it as proper an object of feminine as of masculine pursuit. The objection that ladies can- not be brought to see the serious nature of the immortal game — that they have an innate predis- position to talk and to " move on the stroke " — may be conclusively answered (if, indeed, it calls for an answer) by pointing to the silent, motion- less and appreciative spectators, many of them ladies, who accompany golf matches in Scotland and in certain parts of England, where the etiquette of the grand, old manner is properly observed. 26 <30lf CHAPTER II IMPLEMENTS We cannot follow back into its earliest stage of evolution from the primeval hockey stick, the first golf-club of primeval man ; but we know that the golf-club was but a clumsy weapon be* fore the days of old Hugh Philp and that Scot- land imported feather golf-balls from Holland, until a protectionist Act of the Scottish Parlia- ment forbade it. A rude weapon, the effort of a Welsh carpenter, was once lost by its owner in the St. Andrews club-house. It was found, after many days, reposing in stately anachronism with the real old golf-club relics of the past, under a glass case. An antiquary had mistaken it for an antique— a mistake the like of which antiquaries have made before. Hugh Philp made drivers and all wooden clubs much lighter than the earlier specimens which are still extant, and thnn the club elaborated by the AWlsh carpenter. Making all allowance for the tendency to praise the time that is past, Philp Umplements 27 undoubtedly put a beautiful finish on his clubs, and made them of sterling good wood. But they were light — lighter than the scratch-playing amateur and the professional uses to-day. Also as regards the wooden clubs, there were more of them. The golfer of to-day uses far more iron clubs, in comparison to the wooden ones, than the golfer of fifty years ago used. Gutta-percha is partly — principally, we suspect — the reason. It is, perhaps, less elastic as a material for golf- balls than the old leather, stuffed with feathers. It is also far cheaper, and a top with the iron does not destroy it so utterly. Year by year the tendency seems to be to play with heavier and with stiffer clubs. The demand for golfing materials has grown so rapidly of late that it is hard to get good clubs or good balls. As a rule, you will get better clubs if you buy them straight out of the club-maker's shop than you will get at the general supply stores of the city. Especially is this the case if you have a friend in the club- maker's shop. Your friend will then see that you are served with a fine and well-seasoned bit of wood, both for shaft and head. As the advice which we are presumptuous enough to offer is given chiefly in the interests of the beginner, we may say at once that the begin- 28 <30U ner will do well to play with a stiffish club. The spring in the shaft which feels so seductive is apt to lead to inaccuracy. Many materials have been tried for shafts — including, besides all kinds of woods, rhinoceros hide and shafts with a steel core. We are inclined to think that for driving clubs — indeed for all wooden clubs— no shafts are better than the ordinary hickory ones, if they be good of their kind. But lance wood and green- heart are also good for shafts, though, in our opinion, somewhat too heavy. For the shafts, of iron-headed clubs, orange wood is perhaps better than any ; for though it, again, is heavy, the weight matters less in this case, and the orange wood keeps its straightness rather better than hickory. But hickory is most commonly used, and is quite good enough. Ash shafts are not so good — the spring in them is apt to run all up the shaft; and the best driving shafts are considered to be those in which there are afew inches of lino steely spring just above the whipping which hinds shaft and head together. Still, some men like to play with shafts made of their old billiard cues, and since this wood is sure to be well seasoned the conceit is harmless. For heads beech is certainly the best. Apple and pear and hornbeam are perhaps more durable ; Implements 29 but that is because they are harder, and the hard- ness diminishes the driving quality. The best driving heads of all are those in which the grain of the wood runs out towards the face ; but this is a point which need not be insisted on. If the hickory for the shaft and the beech for the head be well seasoned, and the club be well finished off, the reasonable golfer can expect nothing more. He may expect, however, with reason, to find in the club-maker's shop a fair selection of these good clubs, so that he may make a choice of the weight and style of club which suits his fancy. Excellent clubs may be bought second-hand out of the sets with which professionals play — but for these the professional rightly and naturally asks a fancy price. Whether this is worth the paying depends a great deal on the financial posi- tion of the purchaser, but the very commonest form of golfing disappointment is to find that one cannot play a bit with a dearly-bought club which had seemed a perfect wand of Jehu when we had it on trial. The ordinary wooden stock-in-trade of the golfer of to-day is seldom more than two drivers — one in case of accident to the other, and a brassey — i. t* its impact with the ball. In other words they aim at making the blade of the cleek Implements 35 as thick as it can be made without disturbing the balance of weight. There can be little doubt that this is a good principle, and we cannot be far wrong in advising the golfer to choose his cleek-heads thick, and in other respects to suit his own fancy; always remembering that Avhat he gains in loft he will lose in distance, and vice versa, as we said when speaking of the bras- sey. For distances which are too short for the cleek, the iron is the club. There are many sorts of irons : such as driving irons, lofting irons and heavy irons, but for all practical purposes one iron is sufficient. It should be shorter in the shaft than the cleek, and the shaft should be stiffer. The head should be more lofted than the cleek-head. In this particular, again, we should advise the beginner to aim at a mean be- tween an extremely lofted head and an extremely straight-faced one. The latter will drive some- what further, and the greatly lofted one will pitch the ball rather deader ; but on the whole, and especially at first, it is best to aim at reduc- ing the number of clubs rather than exaggera- ting it. All the clubs which we have discussed, with the exception of the iron, and perhaps the baffy 36 (Bolf spoon, are intended almost entirely for full shots — that is to say, for shots in which the full swing is used. But with the iron you will have to learn to play a regular gradation of strokes, with three- quarter, half and quarter swings, down to the little wrist stroke. For all these purposes an iron with medium loft is sufficient, as well as for the full swing strokes ; but, as we said before, it is quite possible that you may find yourself able to play most of these with a baffy — a short, stiff, much spooned wooden club — better than you can with an iron. In this, experience alone can be a safe guide. For the shorter strokes, of which we have spoken as usually played with an iron, many men use a mashie. The mashie is gener- ally rather shorter and stiffer than the iron. Its face is more laid back, so that it will pitch the ball more dead, and its face is exceedingly short — almost as short as the little round face of the niblick, between which and the iron the mashie is a kind of compromise. The mashie is a club of rather recent invention, and before it came into general use many players used the niblick as an approaching club where it was necessary to pitch the ball more dead than they could hope to pitch it with an iron. The trouble about this practise was that the face of the niblick was so dread- Implements 37 fully small that it required great accuracy to hit the ball truly with it. If hit on what would have been the heel of the iron, the ball found no heel in the niblick, and flew off towards cover- point, off the hose of the niblick, with disastrous consequence. Therefore wise men invented the mashie. But even with the mashie it is all too easy, especially for the beginner, to hit the ball on the heel. The learner will probably do better to eschew its use, and to employ, instead — sup- posing that he finds he cannot play the short approaches with sufficiently dead loft off an ordinary iron — a much-laid-back approaching cleek. On some links these are a great deal used, under the name of jiggers. The shaft should be short and stiff and the head well laid back. The appropriate and painful function of the niblick is to get you out of a bunker, or very bad lie. Its head is so short that it will go into almost any hole or rut big enough to receive the ball, and in sand it meets with less resistance than the long-faced iron. Many players have ceased to carry a niblick, making a mashie do most of its duties. The niblick should be heavy in the head or should have the shaft very strong. Mr. Frank Fairlie has invented a method of ob- viating the trouble of occasionally hitting the 38 (Bolt ball on the hose of these short-faced clubs. He has the hose coming' up from the rear of the "blade so that no ball can possibly meet it. We incline to think that this is a good invention for the be- ginner, though most players who have learned with the ordinary weapons will be frightened by the strange looks of the new patent. Certainly the list of clubs which we have given ought to suffice to bring any player on to the putting-green. He has now to use a putter with with which to get the ball into the hole. Of pullers there are two kinds — the wooden and the iron. The wooden putter has the wisdom of ages in its favor, for the general use of the iron putter is quite modern. A\ r e are inclined to think that the iron putter is perhaps the better weapon for putts up to twenty yards in length; "but cer- tainly the wooden putter is safer for the long putt. This matter of putting, however, is one for which it is even less possible to lay down a hard and fast rule than for any other part of the game. Men pull well with all manner of weapons and in all manner of altitudes — and in all atti- tudes and with all weapons men putt badly. One can but say this for certain, that the shaft of the putter, whether wooden putter or iron, should he without spring. Balance is a great implements 39 quality in a putter, but one which it is quite im- possible to define or even to describe. An ex- perienced player will tell you in a moment, of any particular putter, whether it balances well. Surely, too, its face should be perpendicular — or very nearly so ; and beyond that there is little that one can say. To play golf one must have golf-balls ; and a good golf-ball is a very difficult thing to get. Excellence in balls may be viewed from two different points. The player who is engaged in important matches — or what he deems as such — is on the lookout for the ball that will enable him to play the best golf. The beginner is more concerned with finding out a ball which will re- sist his tops with the iron and various maltreat- ment. From these rather vague hints we must leave the beginner to cull what information he can. This, above all, is to be remembered — that no ball is good when it is new. If you buy balls new you should keep them— unpainted for choice — in a cool dark place for three months, then paint them, give the paint a month to dry, and go and try to play golf with them. If the paint be too old, or if too much drier be mixed with it, it will chip off with the jar of the striking. 40 <3olf CHAPTER III EDUCATIONAL Golf is best learned by imitation, and since boys, being, I suppose, nearer akin to monkeys than they are when they grow up, are the most imi- tative of human creatures, it follows even from that that golf is best learned as a boy. Moreover, it is a great matter to get into the right way of doing athletic things while the muscles are grow- ing ; for then they seem to grow so that they can- not do it wrong. Unfortunately every one is not a boy, nor has every boy a good golfing model to imitate, or else perhaps it would not be so abso Intel v necessary to write precepts for a golfer's teaching. Further, no boy ever learns much out of a book, so that the following remarks must be considered to be intended for persons with common sense and a faculty for applying it. Golf— like all Gaul in Caesar's time — is divided into three parts — driving, iron-play and putting. Driving is the most pleasing part of the game, because the ball looks so delightful as it flies two Educational 41 hundred yards without touching ground (that is with a wind behind), and there is a great sen- suous pleasure in hitting the ball truly with the driver. In old days it was rather the counsel for the beginner to abjure the driver and play with the cleek ; but this was before golfers were so numerous, or turf on golf links so scarce. The cleek, as an iron-headed club, cuts up more turf than a driver will do. Therefore, do not begin with a cleek, but begin with a modified form of wooden club, which shall resemble the cleek in being somewhat short and stiff. The resident club-maker will make you one, or a mid spoon will meet the purpose. Later, when, if ever, you acquire confidence and freedom, you may lengthen your driver, and so, presumably, your drive. One says presumably, for it is almost open to question, so slight is the increase in length of drive given by a longer club. Especially if the beginner has had the education of a cricketer will he find a shorter club more handy, for so it becomes more like a cricket-bat. Now, having hold of such a club as this, it is necessary to con- sider the proper position of the bail which you mean to strike with it — the proper position, that is, relatively to the striker. In order to get a definite starting-point, I would 42 <3olf ask the learner to imagine the intended line of flight of the ball. As he stands in position to strike, a line drawn from the toes of one foot to the toes of the other should he, roughly speaking, parallel to this imaginary line of the intended flight of the ball. With regard to the distance which the ball should be from the striker a good measurement is to lay the club with its "heel" to the hall, and the end of the shaft should then just reach to the left knee when the striker stands upright. This, then, gives the manner of facing the ball and the distance of the hall from the striker. To determine its position relatively to the feet of the striker, a line drawn from the hall in such a way as to meet at right angles the line from the striker's left toes to his right toes should fall, say, four inches to right of his left toe. These directions will give all necessary adjust- ments, and it will he seen, by those who know, that in them we have advocated what seems to be a mean, avoiding, on the one hand, the ten- dency of Mr. J. E. Laidlay, who places his ball for the drive almost in advance — to the left— of his left foot, ami, on the other hand, the idio- syncrasy of Mr. Maelie, say, who plays with the ball not much to (he left of his right foot. Both these are very Jine players, but it would be more BCmcational 43 true to say that they are so in spite of their peculiarities than by reason of them. In all hints for the learner we shall try to suggest the mean, merely naming the extremes between which, if anywhere, is perfection. The manner of gripping the club is the next subject for consideration ; for it is important, though we are disposed to think that many teach- ers over-rate its importance. One maxim may be laid down as a truism — that the beginner should grip more tightly with the left hand than with the right. Some finished players say that they grip equally tightly with both hands ; but then it is not to finished players that these remarks are addressed. Some players, again, hold the thumbs of both hands down along — not round — the club shaft ; others hold one thumb along and the other round ; others, again, hold both thumbs down. As before, the mean is perhaps the most advisable aim for the beginner. Let him hold the thumb of the right hand round and that of the left hand down along the leather. It will be seen that in this manner a stronger grip is obtained with the left hand than with the right, which is in itself a good thing, and, further, that the thumb of the left hand helps to control the direction of the swing — that is to say, the movements of the head 44 <3olf of the club. Maybe it is possible to hit a little harder with both thumbs round the club, but it is of more importance to be accurate than to be powerful; and, again, it is possible, at iirst, to be a little more accurate with both thumbs along the grip, but it does not do to get cramped in seeking to be accurate. The mean is best. Now, you have hold of the club in the right way, and the ball is at the right distance from you, and your feet are in proper position relatively to each other and to the ball. Remember, now, that when you begin to strike the ball you do not want to be stiff, as if you had swallowed a poker and had rheumatism at every joint. Do not, therefore, tighten your joints ; let your knees be slightly bent, so, too, with your elbows and your back ; but, on the other hand, do not crook your limbs in the fashion of a dachshund, nor painfully bend your back over into the atti- tude of a croquet-hoop — for all these things are done. Let all the principal hinges of the body !><• slightly relaxed, but not elaborately crooked. If you are a well-made man — and every one sup- poses himself to be that — the most natural angle of these joints will most, likely be tin; least wrong. The bend of your right elbow will be a good deal affected by the manner of your grip with the Educational 45 right hand. Many professional teachers insist on the right hand being forced over the club until the back of the hand is uppermost. Some pupils carry this to so great an extreme as to get in a short time something like scrivener's palsy in the right hand and arm. This is a pity. In moderation the turn over of the right hand is good, but it is a mistake to cripple oneself with it. The club should be laid to the ball in such a way that the middle line of the head — say, where the maker's name usually comes — shall be just opposite the ball. The sole of the club should be fair and flat on the ground — presuming the ground to be smooth — and the face of the club should be at right angles to the intended line of flight of the ball. Xow, if you are standing at all correctly you will find that the ball, your hands and your left eye are pretty much in the same vertical plane. Your hands should not be much pushed out from the body. A straight line drawn from your eye to the ball should pass high above them. Indeed, we think we may say that with almost all good players the upper arms, almost down to the elbows, are kept in gentle contact with the body. The method of all golfers — practically speaking 40 <3olf — when about to drive is as follows : they walk up to the ball and stand to it, with reference to its intended line of flight, pretty much as we have indicated ; they rest the club for a moment on the ground behind the ball, so as to assure themselves of the distance, then they commence a little pre- liminary waggle of the club over the ball once or twice ; then they again rest the club behind the ball for a moment, and then they draw it up for the magnum opus — the heroic business of the " swing." This is the order to be observed ; and taking the various motions of the " address " in chronological order Ave have now arrived at the "waggle." The "waggle" has a use though it does not appear to have one. Its use is to en- courage the arms into a certain freedom of move- ment which they would be apt to miss if the club were drawn right away from the ball after its first rest behind it. Again, the "waggle" is a sort of trial cruise, or preliminary canter, for it suggests to the driver the proper direction of the swing by causing the club-head to move over the hall in little sections of almost the same areas the swing itself. The club-head should not be drawn more than two feet or so away from the b;ill in this preliminary flourish, nor he allowed to follow on for more than about that distance in jEDucational 47 front of the ball. The waggle should be executed chiefly by the wrists, and above all it should be remembered that its great use is to assure the driver that his arms are moving freely while his body is planted firmly, though not stiffly, on the feet. The latter is a very important point. A good player's feet seem to grip the ground almost as if he were quadrumanous when he addresses himself to the ball. It needs no wizard to see that if there be any shiftiness or uncertainty in the stand the stroke must lose both in power and accuracy. So, when this " waggle " has been executed, following the line of flight of the swing (so near as may be, that is, considering that the club in the " waggle " has to pass to and fro above the ball), then the driver should again for a mo- ment rest the club behind the ball before raising it for the great effort to which all that has gone before is but preface. One great point to bear in mind is that the golfing stroke is a swing, and not a hit. The ball is to be swept away by the swift movement of the club — it is not a matter of driving at a dynamometer. It will at once be asked " What is the difference between a swing and a hit?" The difference that we mean to imply may be explained by saying that by swing we mean a motion which may be slow or may be 48 <50lf fast, may be sometimes slow and sometimes fast, but changing its speed at a constant rate of acceleration or diminution. One of the great maxims of the old golfing sages was " slow back." You were told that the up- ward swing was to be very much slower than the downward swing. This is quite good advice, but the slowness of the upward swing must not be the slowness of a man " trying to catch a fly on his ear," as Sir Walter Simpson so happily puts it, Ko; the upward stroke must be a swing no less than the downward. It must be a swing, and it must not be a lift. The player should feel the weight of the club-head all the while that he is raising it. Further, there should be a sort of har- mony between the upward and downward swing. A man in whom practise in youth lias engendered confidence will bring the club on to the ball with a lightning speed which would lead a middle-aged learner into a horrible fiasco — this young man may seem to bring up his club very quickly, and indeed may actually do so ; but you may be quite sure that it is not a swift movement in com- parison with the speed of his downward swing — otherwise he would not be a fine driver. There must be a unity ; and the man who can but dare to hit slowly at the ball must make his upward ^Educational 49 swing slower again, or he will lose this unity. In point of fact the whole thing ought to be of a piece — the pace and vehemence of the " waggle " and the speed of the upward swing all regulated by the pace of movement which the player has it in his mind to give to the club-head at the mo- ment that the club-head meets the ball. But, it will be said, there is necessarily a pause at the top of a swing. That is so, but even this pause has a relation to the speed of the swing and is shorter where the swing is quicker. In this regard Ave find a striking contradictory instance in the person of David Brown who once Avon the championship at Musselburgh. His is a rather sIoav, wild SAving upward, Avith a tremendously long pause at the top. Noav David Brown is an exceedingly fine golfer, but his is not the driving style on which Ave should advise a learner, espe- cially a middle-aged one, to form himself. Here, as in above-named cases, he is a genius in spite, rather than by reason, of his eccentricities. The swing, then must be allowed " to finish itself out," as it is called, at the top before the club is brought doAvn again to the ball. Fly-fishers will best realize the full meaning of this counsel. Then may the club, tightly held in the left hand, and less tightly in the right, be brought doAvn Avith 50 <3olf constantly but evenly accelerated force until the greatest speed which the player can control is given to it at the moment at which the face of the club meets the ball. So much, then, for the pace of the swing in its various movements. The direction of the swing- is the next point to study. A good fundamental principle to bear in mind is that the club-head should travel as long as possible, consistently with sufficient force, in the intended direction of the ball's flight. The correctness of this principle is almost self-evident, for it is clear that if fully acted on it will ensure the ball being correctly struck, and also will give the player a better chance of striking it correctly, because the club- head will thus be traveling for some little section of the swing in the direction in which it is pos- sible for it to meet the ball properly. The club- head must not be describing the arc of a circle at the moment of its meeting the ball — it must be traveling horizontally if it is to hit the ball fa iily, and the longer its course in this horizontal plane the longer is the space in which it may meet the ball fairly, [t gives more margin for a little error. This is, in fact, an application of the principle on which the young cricketer is in- structed to play forward " Prom wicket to wicket." Educational 51 He then keeps his bat moving all the time in such a direction as will meet the ball fairly. The ffreat means of carrying into effect this principle in its application to golf is to let the arms swing well away out from the body as the club-head comes down. If the arms be kept in to the sides the ball will be sliced and bestruckwith a feeble, crooked blow. Now it is a maxim taught by all golfing experience that the down- ward swing is almost sure to be a repetition, in its direction, of the upward swing. If you are slicing your balls and ask a professional the reason, he will generally tell you that you are bringing the club up too straight. Of course, theoretically, it does not matter how vou are brinoino* the club up — what matters is how you are bringing it down. But the professional knows by experience, with- out having theorized about it, that if you bring up the club in a certain direction you will bring it down again in a similar direction : therefore he tells you to sweep it along the ground away from the ball as you take it back preparatory to bring- ing it down again. If you take a spot on the carpet and try bringing the club-head away from that spot as if it were the ball, you will find that unless you sway with your body, which you must 52 <3olf not do, the only way that you can with any ease bring the club away from the ball in a direction which would be a backward prolongation of its intended line of flight is by letting your arms straighten themselves well out as you draw the club-head away. If you begin at once to bend your arms, the club-head will leave the ball in a direction slanting from this line ; and you may depend upon it that if you bring it away in this manner you will also bring it down again in a like manner. And this you must not do. By the time your club, in the upward swing, has gone to an angle of about 45 degrees with the plane of the horizon, your arms should be stretched out to their fullest. Then they must, of course, be allowed to bend to admit of the club being swung well back behind the head, and this series of ad- just incuts will naturally repeat themselves as you briii"- the club down again. AVedonot mean that you are to neglect the direction of the downward swine; altogether. It is useful to remember that your arms should again be at their fullest stretch when the club is again, on its descent, at the same angle of 45 degrees with the horizon; but if you can gel into thecorrect way of the upward swing von will find the reverse motions much simplified. At the top of the swing the club should be above ^Educational 53 the right shoulder and pointing away, behind your head, somewhat in the line in which you in- tend to drive the ball. Do not let the club strike or rest on your shoulder, nor swing it round so low as to be below your shoulder. To get the club into this position with any ease you will find that you have to allow the body to turn upon the hips, and also to allow the knee to bend inwards. Your shoulders will also of course turn upon the backbone, as if the backbone Avere a pivot on which they worked. "With, almost all fine drivers you will see that the left heel comes right off the ground and that they aid the turn of the body by rising on to the ball, or even on to the toes, of the left foot. But all these motions should rather follow the sAving, so as to enable it to be easilv performed, than be considered an integral part of it. They should go to help the swing, rather than to make it. If you find it easy and natural to raise your left heel thus off the ground, if at>u find that it is dragged off the ground, as one may say, in the motions of the swing, allow it to fol- low these motions ; but do not make an effort to take the heel off the ground in the hope of thus making the SAving longer and more correct. The same may be said of the bending in of the left knee and the turning of the body — these move- 54 <3olf mcnts should be allowed to take place in propor- tion as the upward swing seems to demand it of them ; they should not be made in order to form the swing. In course of the upward swing the weight of the body is transferred from both legs — or, indeed, from the left leg, for this should bear most of the weight as you address the ball — on to the right leg, which supports almost the whole weight when your hands are at their highest above the shoulder. But this, again, should follow the swing naturally, and there should be no effort made to effect the change. But, it will be asked, how can this be done if the body is not allowed to sway I The true fact is that the lower part of the body does move in course of the upward swing from left to right, working on the hips; but the backbone at the shoulders must In 1 steady, or must move on its own axisonly, forall through the swing your head should hardly change its position at all, but must keep the eyes Looking steadfastly at the ball throughout. If you take your eves off the ball for a moment you will find it impossible to be accurate. Further, at the moment at which the club-head meets the bull your legs, body, hands, and all should be back again, for the fraction of BDucational 55 an instant, in the position in which all were when you addressed yourself to the ball. For this is the use of the address, to show yourself the attitude in which yon wish all your muscles and your golf- club to be at the moment of striking. Therefore, it is well to have the upper vertebrae of the back- bone steady, as a sort of fixed point to help you back. Beginners, and even some who have played long enough to know better, have a habit of moving forward the right foot as they strike, or even of moving the left foot a little as thev swing back. It need scarcely be said that there can hardly be a more fatal habit. It must diminish accuracy, and can give no compensation in the way of added power. But even after you have contrived to bring down the club so as to hit the ball as described, there is a further word to be said about the direc- tion in which the club-head should travel. Not only should it travel before striking the ball in the direction which would be a backward prolonga- tion of the intended line of flight of the ball, but even after the ball has been struck it should follow on as far and as straight as possible after it. And this, again, you will find can best be done (indeed, can scarcely otherwise be done, 56 <30lf except by swaying of the whole body, which is still unadvisable) by letting the arms again fly out straight as if they, too, were wishing to follow the ball. In fact, we may put the precept very roughly, but practically, in this form — to let the arms swing as far as conveniently may be from the bodv all through the swing, both before the ball is struck and after. It is evident that if you are to keep your eye on the ball throughout (and this you must do) your left upper arm must not swing up high, so that the elbow should come before your face. You must be able to look over it at the ball. In these instructions we have tried to give brief reasons as we went along. We may now shortly epitomize the most important pieces of advice. Stand steadily on your feet. Let the swing be a harmony, the up-swing more slow than the down- swing, hut in a, certain relation to it. Keep your eye on the hall ; let your arms swing well away out from the body as you draw the club hack from the hall, and similarly as it comes down to the hall and after it has struck it, Grasp more tightly with your left hand than with the right. Lei unessential motions, such as lifting the heel of the left foot off the ground and heading the left knee, follow the swing rather than be con ^Educational 57 sciously made a part of it. Do not try to hit with so much force — that is to say, speed — as to be unable to control the direction of the club- head. 'When you first begin you will learn more by trying to get this swing correctly without a ball than you will with one. Practise at daisies on a lawn, but, if possible, always have a good golfer looking on to tell you of any faults. Then, when you begin hitting at the ball, you will naturally reproduce the swing without having to think about all its details. If you want to get on } T ou must be thoughtful. Golf is not to be learned without an effort. If you have made a bad start, try to think where the error was, and have a few trial swings at a daisy to correct it. Equally, if you have made an unusually good one, try to reproduce it, so as to fix in your mind and muscles the means by which you achieved it. There is really much more fun and satisfaction to be got out of the game if } T ou take it up in this earnest way than if you go at it in a slap-dash fashion. You will im- prove so much faster. Golf altogether is as much a matter of character and temperament as of eye and muscle. But do not study the details so much as to lose 58 Golf all sense of freedom. Keep the direction of the swing right, and keep your eye on the ball — these are the two big things you have to think of. Other details are less important, and may be taken up as } r ou find you are going wrong in them. Do not sway your body is a third maxim of first-rate importance, and if you transgress none of these three you cannot long go far wrong. Still, you will always find, even when you have got the swing beautifully, in the absence of the ball, that it becomes a different thing when the gutta-percha takes the place of the daisy. You will then find yourself irresistibly tempted to hit — not to stick to the easy swing. Often, too, without understanding your malady, you will find that you are in a very bad case, and more often than not an experienced player, watching you, will tell you that your eye is not on the ball. It seems as if it ought to be easy to look at the ball, hut experience shows us how difficult it is. Look- ing away from the ball is a sin which the best players commit at times. Remember, too, that it is not on the top that you wish to strike the ball, but on the hinder side. Keep your eye, therefore, on the spot which you wish the face of the club to meet. JE&ucatfonal 59 Of the professional or amateur teachers to whom you may appeal, you will lind that some are very much more helpful than others. An amateur will rarely do you much good. He is generally rather intent on his own game, and gives you but little attention. But the profes- sional you will pay to give you attention, so you have a right to expect it. But do not let him come out with clubs and balls, or, at least, let him confine himself to one club and one ball*, with which he may set you good examples from time to time. But on .no account, at first, endeavor to play a match with him ; for, if you do, it is clearly absurd to expect him to take as much in- terest in your game as in his ; and it is in your game that you want him to take exclusive in- terest. It is by no means always the best play- ers, whether professionals or amateurs, who will give us the best advice, any more than it is the healthiest man who is the best doctor. Some have a peculiar talent for seeing what is wrong. Moreover, a man who is fairly familiar with your play is likely to be better able to detect the causes of your aberrations than another. lie is in a position analogous to that of the familj r doctor who has been conversant with your con- stitution since your infancy. A clever teacher CO (Bolt will not try to teach you a too exact imitation of his own style, but will be intelligent enough to see how far his methods are suited to your muscles and shape. But all success in golf is not to the driver. There are other matters for your study. Thus far we have spoken chiefly with reference to the simple full swing. This swing has to be used with certain modifications when driving with or against a strong wind, or when the lie is bad or sloping. The ball which the beginner finds easiest of all to hit is, perhaps, the ball which lies up-hill — i. and the ball; and in order to do this it must be traveling rather in a downward direction. It, then goes on into the ground, cut- ting up a lid of turf and being rather arrested with a jerk in the ground —whence its name. JEDucattonal 63 Note this — the reason of its name — and do not be misled into the idea that there has been any jerkiness in the motions of the swing. The swing has to be as truly a swing, and with as even mo- tions, until the ball is struck, as in the ordinary drive. It is only in the meeting of the club and ground that the jerk occurs. Therefore all the rules which were laid down for the full swim* 1 o apply to the swing for this jerking shot equally. Your arms may even be allowed to go away after the ball, just as in that other stroke, in spite of the jerk of the club in the ground. It is true your right foot may with advantage be a little more advanced, because so you are better able to bring the club straightly down upon the ball ; and you may, perhaps, grip somewhat tighter with your right hand. But remember you do not want to see how straight down you can bring the club. Your aim should rather be the reverse, to see how much you can sweep the club-head along the ground — in the manner recommended for the drive — consistently with getting it to strike fair on the ball without spending the greater part of its force on the lip of the cup. The best practical maxim is to hit in as much the manner in which you would hit a teed ball as possible, considering the lie of the ball. 04 <3olf This stroke, it is very plain, requires great accuracy. The club-head has just to clear the lip of the cup and yet not to hit the ball on the top. It is, therefore, more necessary in this stroke than in any other to keep the eye firmly on the ball all through the swing — and not merely to keep the eye "on the ball," which would seem to mean on the top of the ball, but on that exact spot on the ball which we hope will be the point of impact. It so often happens that the iron clubs are used out of bad lies that many good players are in the habit of jerking, in this manner, all their iron shots. Most find themselves able to hit the ball straighter and with more control, and certainly quite as far, in this method. But we also see very fine iron players who hit the ball clean, without jerking, so we may leave it as a matter of taste without dispute. You will generally find that the shorter the club which a good player has in his hand the more will his right foot be advanced and the more will he be gripping the club with his right hand. In the methods of the majority of St. Andrews pro- fessionals this is so. The shorter the club in their hand and the shorter the stroke to he played, the nearer does the right toot come to the ball until, Educational C5 in the case of the late Young Tommy Morris, one used to wonder that his putter did not sometimes hit his right toe. "We may leave the beginner to apply, as best he may, these instructions for the full swing (whether carried smoothly through or checked by jerking in the ground) to all the full swings shots, whether with driver, brassey, cleek, iron, baffy, or mashie ; but it will be well to give him another position for the three-quarter shot with • the iron — and this position for the three-quarter shot will serve him, with modifications, for the half shot, quarter shot, wrist shot and even, if it so please him, for the putt. For convenience it will be as well to say at once that what we mean by the three-quarter shot is the shot which is re- quired at such a distance that the player's full iron shot would carry him just a little too far. The difference in swing between a full shot and a three-quarter shot we may say to be that, whereas in the full shot the left shoulder swings down and round on the backbone for a pivot, in the three- quarter shot the shoulders practically do not turn at all. It is a stroke played almost entirely with the arms and with movements of the lower parts of the body — the legs and hips. Of course the shoulders are not rigid ; they give with the other 5 ce> Golf motions, but they do not take a very actively en- ergetic part. (We do not insist on this as the only correct or possible definition of the three- quarter stroke, but we find it convenient to adopt it, and think that it fairly describes the stroke ordinarily so named.) The feet should be nearer together than in the full swing, and the right foot should be rather in advance of the left — by which we mean that a line drawn from the toe of the left foot to the toe of the right foot, and towards the player's right, would soon meet a prolongation backward of the proposed lino of flight of the ball. The ball also should be not so much towards the player's left as was recommended for the driving stroke, but about midway between the feet, and, for choice, rather nearer the right foot. The club may be gripped rather tighter with the right hand than was advised for the drive; and, with these differ- ences, the stroke may be allowed to be very sim- ilar. The club should be brought away from the ball well along the ground, the anus being allowed t<> go out pretty straight. Again, the upward part of the sv. ing must be in a certain harmonious relation, with regard to its speed, to the down- ward part. Again, it must be allowed to swing itself out behind the back, like the line of the lly BOucatfcmal 67- fisher, before being brought back ; and, again, the turn of the body at the hips, the knuckling in of the left knee, and the rising off the left heel must be allowed to follow the swing of the arms rather than be made actively to encourage it. Again, the eye must be kept well on the ball and the arms be sent out after the ball is struck. So, in all this, the three-quarter stroke bears great re- semblance to the full drive — why, then, should it be so difficult? For it is fairly generally admitted that this is the most difficult of all golfing strokes — the dis- tance most generally abhorred even by good players. We are inclined to think that a fre- quent reason of failure is in the peculiar difficulty of letting the upward swing, in this stroke, finish itself well out before the downward swing is commenced. The shoulders are not working freely, but are kept rather stiff and taut ; and this, we are inclined to think, disposes the player to hurry back just a little — to give a little jerky twitch which disturbs the smoothness and ac- curacy of aim. Therefore, our advice to the beginner would be to take note of this danger, and be forewarned against it, and be particularly careful in this three-quarter shot to let the up- ward swing finish itself well out. OS ucattonal 77 putter for their long putts and an iron one for holing out. But all this is in a great measure a matter of fancy and of confidence, as is all put- ting. Some men play quite long approach putts with iron putters, and play them very well ; but it would appear that for approaching over rough ground with the iron putter it is best to hold the club rather lightly in the grip. Then the ball runs more boundingly and with less of the tight hold of the ground. But of all putting, even more than of the rest of the game, it is true that the great difficulty is to hit the ball correctly ; and the great secret for hitting the ball correctly is to keep the eye on the ball. AYe fancy that few golfers realize how easy it is to miss-hit a putt. The results are not so glaring as in the case of a missed drive, but we are only the more likely, on that account, to go on with our missing and say that our " eye is out," or that we are " bilious," when really the trouble is that we do not realize that we are con- tinually topping, heeling or teeing our putts. Evidence to confirm this will be seen in the fact that a man who is quite off his putting with his usual putter will often take another club and find himself putting quite well with it. Why is this ? Simply because with the unfamiliar weapon 78 Golf he unconsciously feels a greater difficulty in hit ting the ball true, and to effect this gets his errant eye back to the ball again. But he should on no account quarrel with the result because he has found out the reason. By all means let him go on putting with the club lie can play with best. The magic will have gone from it in a day or two. Let him enjoy the novelty while he may. It is always good to have au alternative putting Aveapon — a second string when the first is out of tune. Of putting there are as many styles as there are golfers, almost. Men putt badly in all styles and well in all styles. A few general maxims will suffice on a point on which it is so impossible to dogmatize. The best putters have seemed to us to draw the putter well back from the ball before striking it, so that they have hit a smooth blow without jerk. A great thing is to find out the position in which it is most easy for you to make the putter travel straight as it hits the ball ■ — not in too much of a circle. Bring your putter home, and study out this problem on the lines of the carpet or of the boards of the floor. It will not be wasted time. Imagine the ball to be on a certain spol on the line, and try to see how you can most easily get the putter-head working BDucational 79 along the line both to right and left of the spot. If the putter -head is moving straight when it meets the ball, the ball will not go crooked. Unfortunately you do not have a line marked like this on the putting-green, but it is a good plan to take a line, looking from behind the ball, with your face towards the hole, and select a daisy or a salient blade of grass, and make up your mind that if you can get the ball to go over that you will be in. If you have an index of this kind near your ball you will find it less disturb- ing to glance at it in adjusting your aim than to be continually looking up at the comparatively far-off hole. Bat in your approach-putts we would advise you not to be over-careful in study- ing your direction, but to get as right as possible the much more important matter of strength. In putts of ten yards or over, golfers err much more often in the matter of strength than of direction. Finally, remember the maxim which should ever be on the putter's lips, " Be up." SO <30lf CHAPTER IY. LINKS. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews is surely a line-sounding name ; yet it is not one whit too sonorous a title. Royal, St. Andrews is, for kings and princes have golfed — indifferently — upon its green ; and ancient, because men, royal and otherwise, golfed there before they began to make history. Still, despite the growth of South' ern golf, we look to St. Andrews with pious ven* cration as the alma mater, the fountain head of golfing life and inspiration. She is an austere parent — one might wish her a few more fountains — for her soil is very hard and \ci-y much cut up by the irons of her ungrate- ful children, who arc all too careless about the replacing of the turf. Also the links abound in small braes or grassy faces in the center of the course; and if you Lie close behind one of these your tale is worse than that of the wild knight- errant who has wandered into the " fog " on eithei side. This quality of hardness of soil, which St Xfnfts 81 Andrews shares with Musselburgh, and which is due, one may suppose, to a considerable admix- ture of clay with the sand of the links' soil, is very vexing to a player who has been brought up on the softer turf of Prestwick, Westward Ho! or Sandwich. It is not the best quality, in our opin- ion, for golf ; yet we may bless the golfer's patron saint that the St Andrews turf is thus constituted, for otherwise the whole links would be a Sahara, They would never stand the enormous amount of play which goes on upon them were they of any softer consistency. Nevertheless, St. Andrews, with every drawback, has noble links still ; they are so long — a joy to the long driver. There are none of those tremendous carries from the lie which are the feature of Sandwich ; but the holes are laid out so cunningly, at just the ideal distances apart, that an indifferent drive is almost as badly punished, though it may lie well, as a similar drive at Sandwich which ends in bunker. For unless the first drive be a good one, it happens at nearly every hole that the player will find himself a stroke to the bad because he has not made himself for get- ting up to the putting-green with his second ; or in the case of the long hole, both of outgoing and homecoming, with his third. This is a merit which St. Andrews possesses beyond any other 82 Golf links which we know, and it is a merit which those whose duty it is to lay out links should fully recog- nize and strive to imitate. Far too many holes do we see on most links which are of that most wretched length — a drive and an iron shot, or two drives and an iron shot. This is a wretched length, because it admits of a bad shot going un-penalized. The man who has baffed his drive has but to take a longer club for his next shot than the oppo- nent who has hit a line one ; and both may be on the green in the same number. But at St. Andrews it is hardly ever so. Two really good shots will put the fine driver upon the green, while the opponent, who lias slightly missed one or other shot, will be some forty yards from the hole, and will need an heroic effort to get down In less than three more, while the two faultless drives leave this feat within the range of practi- cal and simple politics. This, we are inclined to think, is the trans cend- ant beauty of St. Andrews. Moreover, most of the holes are remarkably well guarded by bunkers, and bunkers of a \f course, depends on the quality of the ground and of the hazards. Difficulties divide themselves generally into too much growth or too little. The most common problem is, perhaps, to %ink6 95 get rid of whins. They must be cut down and the stubs kept flush with the ground, if they are not rooted up. The human foot is a great clear- ing agent, and so is the golfing niblick. If doubt- ful whether to spare a whin or to uproot it, err rather on the side of leaving it. Your golfer will soon clear whins so throughly away, in grubbing after his ball and in efforts to hit it, that you are soon likely to repent that you did not leave him more of it to do. Your links are apt to become too easy. But in j T our clearing or your sparing you should exercise discretion. Try to arrange matters so that there shall be some hazard for the teed shot to carry ; and this achieved, give the successful driver his reward — give him a reason- able-sized clear space to lie on. The more hazards you give him to right and to left the better, but the straight course may also be too narrow. The race-course at Wimbledon is far too narrow for erring humanity. Neither must you make the carry too severely long, for there are drivers and drivers, and a moder- ate player ought to have a reasonable chance of carrying the obstacle if he hits a fair ball. Fail- ing this, you should give him some bye-way, by which he may stealthily circumvent the hazard, though for this pusillanimity it is only fair that 9G <30lf he should pay some penalty in distance. Of course all this applies equally to the second shot. It, too, should, if possible, have some hazardous risks, but it again should have its reward if it surmounts these risks successfully. It is a great thing to have your holes well guarded with hazards on the hither and farther sides and round about them. Of course few holes are thus completely circumvallated, but you should keep this principle well in mind, for the hazards will call out the skill of the approaches And all this applies equally to hazards of every nature, from whins and sand bunkers down to rough rank grass. Often vou may take advantage of a wall or road in the absence of more legitimate golfing difficulties. Sometimes you may be driven to invent hazards, by throwing up banks, cutting bunkers or planting bushes. The last is always an unsatisfactory method. Good golfing soil is seldom good for vegetation. It will always be necessary to fence round the growing plantation ; and that which it has taken two years to grow, a very few golfers will destroy in a fortnight. If you have to throwup banks it is best to leave broken the ground from which you cut them and throw the bank up on the further side from the Thus the ground itself becomes Xinfcs 97 part of the hazard. Do not throw your banks straight across the course, but in a sinuous curve, for so they are much better golfing hazards and much more pleasing artistically. Build the bank pretty wide, so as to give it solidity, and make the side from which the player will approach it steep, the other side sloping. Of course you will turf it — on the sloping side at all events — other- wise it will soon crumble away. If the angle of the bank is so steep that the new turfs will not lie on it, skewer them in with wooden stakes, after beating them firmly down with the flat of a shovel. But on many links the trouble is that the turf is too light and sandy, without sufficient vegeta- tion to hold it together. This o-ives bad lies and makes it liable to be cut up ver} T easily. There is a peculiar kind of grass seed useful for sandy soil of which Mr. Tom Morris, at St. Andrews, has the secret — though perhaps he shares it with Mr. Sutton, of Heading. It is not very satisfac- tory, however. It is said to grow, but birds eat it or golfers hack it up, and there is little re- sult. It is far better to mend your sand with clay. Get some road scrapings — they are the best things in the world for this friable soil, for they are clayey and full of grass seed, and the Local Board will generally give them to you for 7 98 (3olf the carting away. Spread this road scraping thinly over the sand and the result is sure to be good. If possible do this while the scrapings are damp and rather muddy, and when you think there is rain coming — there is generally rain com- ing. Then, if you sow ordinary grass seed on this, you will give the soil a better chance. Too much rolling is a mistake. On some in- land links we have seen the putting-greens rolled so much that the watery mud had been squeezed out of the ground and had dried in a thin cake all over the green. This makes a horrid surface for putting. You want grass on your putting- greens, as much of it as you can get, but as short as possible. If the grass on your putting-greens is coarse and rank, sea sand sprinkled on it will do much to fine it down. But for all sorts of coarse- ness and tuftiness of turf there is no amelioration equal to the human foot. A dozen men playing golf for a week over a rough common will make a difference such as no one who has not seen it could believe. Some few soils may be too tender to bear the trampling — may be so sandy that even the flat of the foot will tear and bruise the roots. Bu1 on farthe most qualities of turf the tread- ing of feel has a consolidating: effect which no roll- ing can equal. There comes a time when turf Xmfes 99 may grow to be too solid — too hard. In this condition it is what is termed root-bound. The surface is packed so tight that the young- blades cannot get through it. Then it becomes neces- sary to give the turf a rest, to water it well, and to prise it up, without breaking the surface al- together, with a long-pronged fork — not a dinner fork, but an agricultural instrument. This loosens the mold around the roots, giving them fresh room to expand and so to put forth vigor- ous young blades, which will then begin to push up through the surface thus loosened. The signs of this root-bound condition are a thinness and a general yellowness of the grass, as if it were parched by a drought, combined with great hard- ness of soil. Putting-greens on which there is much walking are especially liable to this com- plaint. In the laying out of your putting-greens you should endeavor to have a space, clear of haz- ards, of the size of at least forty yards in diam- eter. The holes should be shifted a yard or two whenever the turf immediately around them appears too much worn or whenever the sides of the holes themselves are at all broken. Sections of iron cylinders let into the holes will preserve their shape much longer than if they were with- 100 <30lf out this support; but on no account should the rim of the iron be above, or indeed quite flush with, the edges of the holes, otherwise it will tend to keep out a well played putt. The best irons of all for the holes are those which have a cross bar with a hole in it for the flag which shall mark the hole. For the flag, without this sup- port, keeps falling over against the edges of the holes and wearing them away. Any of the shops which supply golfing requisites should be able to furnish you with such irons ; or they may easily be made, on your description, by a a blacksmith. The teeing grounds should be marked with whitewash, or, preferably, with discs of white- washed tin with a long nail let through them to keep them in the ground. We think the discs are preferable because they can be easily re- moved, whereas the old whitewash marks are apt to cause confusion as to the new tee. The tees, like the putting-greens, should be changed when- ever the ground becomes at all worn. Your teeing grounds should be as level as pos- sible, and never hanging — i.e., sloping in the direc- tion in which the shot has to be played from them. On the other hand a little undulation in the putting-greens is desirable, and this should bo Xfnfts 101 borne in mind if at any time you have to level your greens. All small knobs should be leveled down. This is best done by making incisions in their turf in the form of a cross, and laving back the edges of the turf while the soil is scooped out from under them with a trowel or with the hand. Then let the edges of the turf be rolled back in place again, and you will have a much less serious wound than tf you had taken the turf bodily off and replaced it. Finally, bear in mind in arranging the length of your holes, that great merit of St. Andrews, where one or two or three full shots, respectively, will land the player upon the green, while he who has at all failed in any shot, will be playing the odds with an iron approach shot. 102 oott CHAPTER V G0LEEMS AND STYLES Nothing is so likely to make the tyro golfer skeptical of the value of that mysterious quality named ' ; style" us a survey of the practises of those who have preceded him across the pons (isi, torn in, of golf. They play in such various systems and there seems so little relation between their styles and their success. Doubtless wisdom is justified of all her children — there is nothing to be said to them provided they succeed. Butit does not follow from their combining success with eccentricity that they arc successful because they are eccentric. Rather it is in spite of their eccen- tricity. And on a more careful study the tyro will observe a family likeness between them all - namely that they have the club moving in the right direction at tin; moment of its impact with the ball — and it is in this that their inherit- ance of wisdom consists. With this point in common their individual differences are great. Goiters anO Stales 103 Man is a very mimetic animal. The highest development of man is the golfer, and in the mimetic quality he excels ; wherein he resembles his forefather the ape. For see how the stamp of individual golfers of genius has impressed itself upon the general golf of the locality in which the genius flourished. The St. Andrews swing, even of to-day, still bears the sign manual of poor young " Tommy Morris," though it is many years since his splendid golling powers were seen on any links. The line swing of Mr. John Ball, junior, finds manifold reproductions in many golfers in the neighborhood of Iloylake. Mr. Laicllay has inspired a multitude of disciples with the letter, if not with the spirit, of that strange style of his — so entirely "off the left leg" — with which he achieves such brilliant results. " Young Tommy " was a player of the most fascinating freedom of swing. It is sad, indeed, that we can no longer see the great original ; but all that slashing elan which every youthful St. Andrews driver exhibits to-day is an inheritance bequeathed by him. Mr. John Ball's character- istics are great firmness of stance upon the feet, and a gripping of the club with the right hand reaching far under, which is a contravention of prescribed rules, but which seems, with him, to 104 <3olf give marvelous power of control over the ball His balls start away low from the club with a whirr like a rocket ; then they rise toward the end of their flight, often with a slight pull from the right, and fall, after a great carry, nearly dead. There are longer drivers than l\Ir. John Ball, though few have a longer "carry"; but this low ball of his is a beauty in the wind, and it is an ideal stroke for driving the ball up to the hole and landing it upon the green. Mr. Laid- lay's great merit is the approach shot. lie is marvelously correct with all his iron clubs. In all his strokes he has the ball farther towards his left, as he addresses it — almost, indeed, to the left of his left foot — than any other good golfer. Over and over again, to the despair of his oppo- nent, will lie land himself from somewhere well oil" the green — often from a most dim cult lie — close lxside the hole. And very often, when he has thus Laid his ball on the green, will he hole a Long, stealing putt, grasping his putter very low down and bending forward to the ball — as if he were reaching out to play forward to a rather short-pitched one ;it cricket — until his back is nearly horizontal. Long driving is a very great, feature of the »f golf to-day. By the trampling feet of Goiters ano Stales ]05 many golfers courses have been widened — the hazardous, rough ground on either side has been worn smooth — so that length has come to be of greater value than the straightness, which was all-important on the narrower links of the past. Allan Robertson, that great giant of the game in the days that are gone, was no gigantic driver. It was his accuracy, combined with his imperturb- able sang-froid, that pulled him through victori- ous in so many fights. The same Avas the great merit of those renowned amateur players, Ad- miral Maitland Dougal and Mr. George Glennie, of whom the former, one stormy afternoon, once won the St. Andrews medal after having been one of the lifeboat's crew which, in the morning, rescued the survivors from a shipwrecked vessel. Mr. Glennie's score of S8 was for many years the record for the St. Andrews medal on that straighter course on which the old golfers used to play. In those days the chief competitors were, perhaps, Mr. Hodge, Colonel Boothby and Mr. Gilbert Mitchell Innes, to the last named of whom especial credit is due for the excellence of his game, seeing that he took up golf only when his days of discretion had been reached. His is a peculiarly quiet and easy swing, which picks up the ball with wonderful cleanness. The late Sir 106 <30lf Robert Hay was a beautiful player of the sani6 school ; and the finished skill with which he used the now almost discarded " baffy " was a proverb. There were many other notable players of like stamp whose game bore impress of the same fact — that accuracy and science were vastly more valuable than mere length of driving. They com- bined, perhaps, the " far " with the " sure, 1 ' but it was the " sure " which they made their especial study. After Mr. George Glennie came Mr. William Mure, record breaking with an 85 for the medal round. Then, in 1883, Mr. Alexander Stuart set a seal upon the date of the year by winning the medal in the self-same figures — 83. His is a long, smooth, even swing, which the learner will do well to set himself to imitate, and it has received the sanction of many successes. On the very day on which Mr. Stuart, did this record, Mr. Leslie Balfour, starting earlier, had done the round in 85, and was hailed as the prospective winner. But though Mi-. Stuart had the better of him this once, ;is often again, Mr. Balfour has had a lion's share of medal wins and a golfing career in every way remarkable. In the Amateur Championship Competition of L892 lie was all even and one to play with Mr. Hall, the ultimate winner ; and in Golfers ano Stales 107 the same year we see him captaining the Scottish cricket team at Lord's. His is a very fine style of driving* — more strong and firm upon the legs than Mr. Stuart's. By a merciful dispensation he sometimes misses a short putt. Often in the fore-front at St. Andrews, and elsewhere, is Mr. Mure Fergusson. His is a strong, powerful game — muscular and determined. All these are of the long-driving class — yet even these are not what we should term the slashers. For these, among amateurs, we must look more especially perhaps to the families of Goff and Blackwell, one of the last-named of whom, Mr. Edward Blackwell, is, surely, the very longest driver in the world. It is told of him that he once drove past the long hole in two, both com- ing in and going out, on the same day. It is worth going to St. Andrews to see him drive — that is if he is there ; for he is oftener in Cali- fornia. His physique combines immense strength and suppleness, and his swing is so magnificent that he seems to get into the ball every ounce of this tremendous power. Nor is he, by any means, erratic in his drives. Some years back, before he went to America, he played two matches, against Mr. Laid lay and Jack Simpson respectively. Both the latter were at the top of their game, at tho 108 Oolt time, bat Mr. Black well defeated them both with ease, entirely by virtue of his enormous driving. Willie Campbell was carrying for Mr. Laidlay, and expressed himself as fairly amazed. Mr. Blackwell's " carry " was said habitually to land him beyond the spot at which Mr. Laidlay's ball stopped running; and Mr. Black well hits rather a running ball; nor is Mr. Laidlay, by any man- ner of means, a short driver. Jack Simpson fared not a whit better at his hands. Both were over- whelmed by the distance by which they were out-driven. It would, perhaps, be a near thing in a driving match between Mr. Blackwell and Douglas Hol- land, Holland's "carry" is enormous — quite as long, probably, as even Mr. Blackwell's ; but wo are inclined to think that Holland's ball does not run so far. Still he is a huge driver — of very powerful physique, and hitting the ball with a rather slow, but very strong, body blow Our meaning is that lie swings his body upon the ball rather more than do the majority of line drivers. Rolland is green-keeper now on a Southern links, but lie learned liis golf at Elie and Earlsferry, in company with the great family of professional golfers— the Simpsons. Jack Simpson was champion one year, and has a very line stylo in- Golfers ano Stales 109 deed at golf. AYe remember that Mr. Everard somewhere speaks of him as having the finest swing of any man who ever played golf. Mr. Everard is, of course, speaking of those who have come within his personal ken ; but his experience of golf is a long and very wide one. Mr. Everard's own game is an example of what great results persistent resolution can produce out of a style which is certainly the reverse of promising. Mr. Everard did not take seriously to golf very early — rather he interested himself in tennis and cricket ; but he is a St. Andrews medalist, and has won man}^ distinctions in many places. One of the easiest and most elegant, as it cer- tainly is one of the most effective, styles that modern golf can show us is that of Harry Yardon, a native of Jersey, who learned his golf on the excellent links in that Island, and is now ensrafired on the Ganton course, near Scarborough. He won the Championship of 1S96-T in a sensational manner, tieing with J. II. Taylor, who had been champion of both the preceding years, and beat- ing him, after a fine fight, in playing off for de- cision. A quiet ease is the characteristic of Yardon's driving swing ; he never seems to force the stroke at all, and yet one is fairly astonished at the distance that the ball is driven bv these 110 <3olf seeming easy means. And when one takes Yardon's club in hand, the wonder is only in- creased. It is shorter and lighter than the aver- age — we have said that Yardon's style of stroke is an easy, quiet one — and we have to seek the explanation of the length of its driving in the perfect exactness with which the player strike's every ball. The motions of the golfing swing make up an effect of great beauty as he displays them, lie has a fine long approach up to the hole, too, with a heavy driving mashie, using it with a half swing. The great antagonist whom he defeated so gal- lantly, and with such fine nerve, for the Cham- pionship, has a xevy different style. Squareness and strength, one would say, are its characteris- tics. Taylor is, himself, a squarely-built, very strong young fellow. lie plays every shot with his right foot a good deal in advance of the left — almost as if every shot were a half iron shot. His swing is not a very long one, and he seems to get the power from the great strength of his fore- arm. His driving, at the time of his double win of tin; ( ihampionship, when he was in better form than we have since seen him, was notable for its wonderful straightness and a, uniformly low tra- jectory that was wry useful on a windy day. Golfers ano Stales 111 Straightness rather than great length (though he is sufficiently long) has always been the feature of Taylor's driving. But if his game was note- worthy for this straigbtness of drive, the straight- ness, the accurate judgment and the dead loft of his mashie approaches were yet more remarkable. It was these qualities that Avon him his champion- ships even more than the accuracy of his long game, and he has studied and worked out a special method of mashie play, which he confidently be- lieves to be the secret of his success. Yarclon's clubs when he won the Championship, and drove really very far all the while, were un- usually short and light, and from this circum- stance a fashion set in, which is still in vogue, of short driving clubs. Savers, who used to play with a club hugely long in comparison with his height, has shortened it down very much, drives just as far as ever he did, and a deal steadier. More lately again, Taylor, Yardon's victim in this tie for the Championship, has followed his conqueror's lead, and he, too, is playing with short clubs now. Many others, both professional and amateur, have adopted the same plan, so that clubs generally are shorter and also lighter, than was the case six or seven years ago. One of our largest drivers and very best players 112 Golf is James Braid, engaged at present at Romford, in Essex. Braid learned his £*olf on the nei be ;i reserve of power in him that he had not when he played with so long a club <3olfers anfc Stales 11? that "the tail seemed to wag the dog." His golfing career has been full of triumph, but per- haps he has seldom had a greater than when he met, and beat, the redoubtable Andrew Kirkaldy a few years ago in a home and home match. Another of the North Country professionals with a very fine style, and a perfect knowledge of all the departments of the game, is Willie Fernie. Just lately he has made a new record for the Prestwick links, on which all the best talent has been playing for generations. It is he that came South and gave a series of golfing lectures, which were well attended and helped some crippled swings not a little. Of the amateurs none holds quite equal place with Mr. Ball and Mr. Hilton. The former has four times been amateur champion and was the first to break the professional spell and win the open championship from the professionals ; the second has never won the amateur championship, but he has won the open tw r ice. But after these, at the moment of writing, we must place Mr. F. G. Tait, who has been amateur champion once, and has twice played up in a most worthy manner for the open championship. If a Scottish amateur is to win the open championship in the immediate future we think that Mr. Tait will be the man to 118 <3olf win it. His game has in it something of the characteristic of Herd's — he always seems to he going well within himself and to have a reserve of force which he could bring out if occasion re- quired it. With a comparatively quiet swing he drives a very long ball, and he is good with all his cluhs — a better putter than the long driver is wont to be. The last amateur championship meeting, held at Muirfield, saw the success of Mr. Travers Allan, a young player of whom little was known, except locally. lie surprised all who saw him play by his quiet determination, and eventually he beat Mr. Robb in the final tic with considerable ease. He was very young when he won that honor, and yet, before his year of holding it was over, he was no more. At the moment of writing there, is no amateur champion, and all the golfing world has felt the sadness of so melancholy and prema- ture a loss. And now we must, bring this chapter to a close, though fully conscious that there are many, many players to whom we owe apologies for the fact that their names are not, among the worthies we have thus casually mentioned. But even to name all the first-class players, whose performances have been worthy of note, and whose styles arc Golfers ano Stales 119 useful patterns for the golfing* tyros, would fill a chapter of itself, and to the general public might prove, in the words of the Scotsman, who read from first word to last of the Greek Lexicon, "Yerra interesting readin' but a trifle discon- nect^." 120 $Olt CHAPTER VI MATCH PLAY The history of the great majority of hard- fought matches is the same ; there is a hole or two of give-and-take at the start before either side has really settled down to work; then there follows a ding-dong strenuous battle, until about three or four holes from home, one or other side holes along putt, lays an iron shot dead, or wins a crucial hole by sonic wonderful feat. Then the other side " cracks " — goes off its game — and the remainder of the round is but a procession to its grave. It is thus that the "crack" is some- times brought about. Very much more often, however, it is the result of a piece of bad play on the part of the "cracking" side, rather than of superhumanly good piny on the part of the win- nine side— for the former is far more common. Bui the three points we wish to call to notice in the typical history of golf-matches are (1) the few dftatcb fl>la£ 121 holes of loose play at the start ; (2) the ding-dong battle ; and (3) the crisis. Taking the first point in its order, we shall find by observation of others and of our own play, that it commonly takes two or three holes for the player to become alive to the difficulty of the task he has entered on; he is apt to drive with a joy- ous carelessness — to putt with no deep sense of his responsibilities, feeling that there is " lots of time ; " that if he loses a hole or two now he can get it back long before the finish. This is a bad frame of mind to start in ; and though it is true that the adversary may be playing with a similar carelessness, it is evident that the one who first settles down to serious business will gain that much of an advantage. It is always well, there- fore, at the start, to recall to yourself past ex- periences of matches which have depended on the result of a single putt, and to remember how immensely important that crucial putt had seemed ; whereas the result of a similar putt at the first or second hole had appeared of no com- parative consequence. Reflect that in point of fact the influence of either on the match was pre- cisely identical — that if you had holed the putt (which you missed and thought nothing of) at the first hole, your nerves would never have been 122 <30lf subjected to all that severe test at the crucial point. Remember that, in the end, it is the easiest plan to play your very hardest from the very first. In point of fact, the result of the first two or three holes is, in many instances, all-important. There are so many men who are depressed by a balance of two holes up against them. Golfers deceive themselves very much about this. It is common to hear them say, " Oh, I hate being up. I play far better if I am a hole or two behind." They believe this themselves, but no one else, who has had much golfing experience, will readily believe it. " It is easy to play the winning game," is a proverb which is far more generally true. Play your hardest from the very first, then, with the conviction that the encouragement of a hole or two to your credit will improve your game, as it gives you confidence, and will correspondingly take a little off the confidence and execution of your opponent. The previous stroke, and the previous results, have always their moral effects. It is wiser to recognize than to ignore them. For this reason, at the drive from the first tee, if your adversary offers you the " honor," accept it ; for most drives are tolerably good ones, and you are more lively, by making a good, clean shot, to put a little of the fear of death on your opponent /Ifcatcb flMaE 123 than he is to encourage you by making a * top." On the other hand, it is, perhaps, scarcely neces- sary to say that it is not in the best of form to take the honor, unless it be offered — at all events without some such phrase of courtesy as " Shall I begin % " or the like. Then, having got the " honor," do your best to keep it. By the latest St. Andrews roles it is in- culcated, amongst the maxims of etiquette, that the player who has the " honor" shall be allowed to drive off from the tee before the adversary shall " tee " his ball. He thus is not bothered by the adversary looking about for a tee while he is striking. There is no penalty for the breach of this maxim ; but on this very account it ought to be regarded, in common with the other maxims of etiquette, as almost more rigidly to be ob- served than those rules which have the sanction of a penalty. The adversary is expected to stand still and silent while the player is making his stroke ; he is expected to stand where the player shall wish him to stand, so as not to distract the eye which should be giving all its attention to the ball. Even though the requirements of the player may often be somewhat whimsical, it is the duty of the opponent to humor and respect them. Breach of a rule is a matter, more or less, IU (Bolt at the breakers risk ; but in infringements of the maxims of etiquette he is sinning in inglori- ous security, and the man of fine feeling will see that he should be the more scrupulous on the point of honor than on the point of law. ftandfcappfng 125 CHAPTER YII HANDICAPPING A handicap is pretty sure to be a good one (1) if everybody concerned is pleased ; or (2) if every- body concerned is dissatisfied. This, however, seldom happens, so that the inference is that few handicaps are good ones. As a rule, the dissatisfied are in a large majority — a majority swollen by those who are not genuinely displeased, but who think that any show of satisfaction might be taken to imply that they consider themselves over- favorably handicapped, and so damage their future chances. It will, therefore, appear that the handicapper's life is unlikely to be a happy one, and that his remuneration more often takes the shape of kicks, metaphorically speaking, than of half-pence. The fact is that it is not the handicapper's fault. Of all games that the idleness of man has invented, none defies calculation so persistentlv as golf. 126 <3olf There are two ways in which it seems reason- able to approach the task of handicapping a num- ber of men for a score competition. The one is to assume a certain score to be the score which a scratch-player is likely to return if he plays his best game, and taking this as the unit, to handi- cap the others so that each, if he also plays his best game, will be likely to return a net score of tin 1 same figure. " Another way " is to handicap so that each man, when he starts, will have an equal chance of winning. Both these plans seem reasonable, yet neither of them is practical, and mutually they are inconsistent. The reason of this — and the reason that golf handicaps must al- ways, so far as human foresight can see, remain imperfect — is that a good golfer plays his best game so very much more frequently than a bad player does. The result of which is that if you handicap on the former method your scratch- player will win far often er than your long-handi- capped men ; whereas, if you handicap on the Latter method your limit players will sometimes win with scores which are, humanly speaking, im- possible for the scratch-player to touch, and you lind yourself in the position of a handicapper for a hundred yards' race, seeing one of the long- start men do the hundred jn nine seconds. Ao cording to our present system there is usually no third method possible; therefore, the handi- capper is reduced to do his best out of a com- promise between these two — and, like most com- promises, it is a futile thing. That we are stating no prejudiced view, a refer- ence to those selling lotteries which we have be- fore mentioned with reprobation, will suffice to show. Therein, though it is one of the principles which a handicap is supposed to recognize that all should start with ecpial chances, we find that one man's chance sells for four or five pounds, while another's is not deemed worth so many shillings. Still, it is not the handicapper who is to blame ; for he is asked to perform impossibili- ties. He can but make the best he may out of a bad job, and ask St. Andrew's favor not to stultify his efforts too completely. Moreover, there is a general feeling that the handicapper is every- body's enemy. Far from seeking to help him, there are many men who seem to take a delight in trying to mystify him — to think that they have done a clever thing if they conceal their real game from him. Many shabby tricks are re- sorted to for this end ; and it is these evil prac- tices which make us so averse to the " selling lot- teries " which offer a substantial temptation to 128 <3olt those whose principles are at all "loose in the glue." The maxim for the handicapper, then, is to do his best to avoid the mistakes which will follow the uncompromising adoption of either of the methods which seem so full of sweet reasonable- ness, lie must exercise his judgment. He must not be too closel\ r bound up in red tape, nor fol- low too blindly the records of previous perform- ances. He must take these records at their proper value — not so much " penalizing- for a win " as for the degree of skill of which that win was evidence. His business is to start all players on an equality, with the modification which is requi- site, in order that the scratch-players should not be handicapped out of all possible chance- — and a vow difficult business it is. Much, too, might 1)0 written on tin 4 mutual re- lations of players and spectators. The player has a right to expect the same consideration from the spectator as from the opponent in such matters as silence and immobility. On the other hand, the immobility and silence which are ex- acted as a due from the opponent are rather eon- ceded by courtesy on the part of the spectator ; so that the player, if occasion for complaint should arise, ought to conch his complaint in the 1banfcicappfn0 . 129 terms of one who is asking a courtesy. But, in point of fact, there should be no need for com- plaint ; and, indeed, the complaining is as distress- ing and disturbing to finely-strung nerves as is the offense which has occasioned it. The consideration of side issues suggested by our first point — the loose way in which the first few holes of a round are commonly played — has led us into digression. We will return to this point in order to say to those who aie about to commence a match in this the normal method, " Don't " — Apply yourself with intensity to the business of the game from the very start. It is the easiest plan in the end, for it may spare you severer struggles later on. Golf your hardest from start to finish. The next point in the story of the typical golf match is the ding-dong battle in the middle of the round. A very great secret of success in golf is to remember that your adversary does not beat you nearly so much as you beat yourself — by which we mean that very many more matches are decided by the mistakes of the loser than by any abnormal feat on the part of the victor. The great thing to do in match play, as in medal play, is to go on playing as well as you can. Do not think too much about the game of your op- 9 130 (Bolt ponent. Play your own game as well as you can and trust to your opponent's mistakes for your victory. The man who makes the fewest mis- takes is the man who wins most golf matches. It is not by heroic means that their issue is decided — it is by " tops," and " sclaffs," and misses, which are usually the result of striving after heroic feats — the result of "pressing." It is a good plan to try to get out of your head the fact of your opponent's existence. Say to yourself, not that } r ou have come out to beat such and such a man, but that you have come out to try to play the game as well as you can, to make every stroke as perfectly as possible, to avoid making a mistake. That is the way to win matches — the way which the most successful match players have pursued. Of course, it is not to be said that this theory is not liable to abuse, as are all theories of human conception. If the adversary lias played two or three more it would be folly to attempt a long carry over a bad bunkeriip to the hole ; although, if the player was two strokes behind, it might be the better wisdom to attempt the perilous feat. All theories must be accepted in a rational spirit, but the tendency is certainly not to realize the truth that is contained in the theory we have stated, hut to try, by heroic pressing, to do some IbanDicapptng 231 thing which shall make the opponent lie down and cry for mercy. That is not the best method of golf. To wear him out by the non vi sed scejje cadendo plan is the thing. Always lay your long putts dead. Make him think that you will un- failingly hole in two from any part of the putting- green, and he will find it very hard to play up against this paralyzing conviction. The moral effect of character is much underrated at golf. We find it in our own experience, though we may never have definitely stated it ourselves ; but probably we are all aware of the depressing effect of playing against one who has the charac- ter of " never knowing when he is beaten, 5 ' who, we are sure, will play up to the very end. On the other hand, how encouraging it is to feel that our opponent is a man whom a small contretemps can put off, who is apt to " crack " at the crucial point, who cannot bear the weight of two holes down. Then, again, we play with much more confidence against an opponent whom we have often beaten, but are depressed by the knowledge that we are playing against one who has been in the habit of getting the best of us. But all this moral effect is greatly annulled if we can keep our attention fixed upon our own play without 132 <3olf being too greatly concerned about out-playing our opponent. Some are very much oppressed when they find themselves outdrjyjm^nd this is really more true of long drivers than of short drivers; for the latter are more accustomed to it. It is distaste- ful to find another constantly outdriving us, but it makes but little difference, if only we can bring ourselves to believe it. The difference between the respective lengths of men's drives is very slight, after all. Very seldom does one gain of another a full stroke in any one hole by length of driving ; but how often is a stroke lost and gained on the putting-green ? The true means of hardening our hearts against the depressing influence of being outdriven is to put ourselves into the way of longer drivers than ourselves, and to play many matches with them. So, by familiarity, we shall grow to have a certain con- tempt for what is, in reality, a slight advantage that these Jehus gain ; and the sensation will not o paralyzing as if it came to us but rarely. And this, again, is but part of a bigger principle — that if we want to improve we must play with better players than ourselves. It is better that our imitation of tin.' methods of superior players should he as little conscious as possible ; in that t>an&fcappfn(j 133 way it is more perfect, and the result becomes more truly a part of our personal property in golf. Certainly it is not well to try by strenuous effort of muscle to drive up to a naturally longer driver. If by the improvement in our style, greater length comes to us, as it were, naturally, by all means let us accept the good gift with gratitude ; but it is no use trying to persuade the ball by the methods of the sledge-hammer. We have spoken of the humors of some golfers, as to the place in which they wish you to stand, etc., while they are playing, and have said that these are sometimes strained to whimsical lengths. They then become a nuisance, though it is your duty to respect them ; and you will bear with them with the greater patience if you can re- member that they are by far a bigger nuisance to the player who is vexed with these fancies than they can be to any of those who have to put up with them. The same consideration may lead you to reflect on the undesirability of cultivating like fancies in } T ourself. Bear your misfortunes as long as you can, even if some one in your vicinity talks or moves while you are playing. The more you can bring yourself to treat these noxious circumstances as if you were unconscious of them, so much the more will you acquire a real 134 (Bolt anconsciousness of them. This will add to your own happiness as a golfer as well as to the hap- piness of all who play with you, in spite of the fact that it will also win for you many more mutches than if you allowed a hyper-sensitiveness about your surroundings to grow until it fully possessed you. Neither is it conducive to the comfort of your- self or others to get into the way of continual complaint about your l uck,^ There never was a golfer yet who was not sometimes tempted to think himself the exclusive subject of Providence's chastisement. That this should be so universal an idea shows that, in reality, Fortune makes no such individual preferences. All men's luck in the long run is probably very much the same. The winning of golf matches depends much upon temperament — on a power of keeping the temper — and that is a power which grows with use, and will be found of very great efficacy throughout the ding-dong battle, and above all in the climax, the crucial point in the? match. At this point it becomes more imperative than ever to bear in mind the maxim that you are required to do nothing heroic, that you have only to go on play- ing steadily without mistakes, and that you may confidently count on a mistake, sooner or later, •foan&icapping 135 to decide the issue of the match. Strive, then, to defer your own mistake ; let your ponent's mistake come first, and the whole business is done ; you have conquered at the crucial point, the match is yours. But, of course, the history of every golf match is not precisely in this wise — though this is the most typical story. Sometimes it happens that you will get a hole or two to the good early in the contest, and then it especially behooves you to try to keep steady. There arises, under these pleasant circumstances, a temptation to go care- lessly, with the golden ease of a man who has a balance at the bank. But this you must strenu- ously fight against. Remember the well-worn saws that the match is never lost till it is won, and the rest of them. Remember this wise say- ing no less when you are two or three down, and never relinquish hope. Some golfers have won a great reputation for their staying powers, for the faculty of stiching to a task which another would give up as hopeless. It is wonderful what matches these strong souls now and again pull out of the fire. Another danger which is apt to beset the path of the man who is a hole or two up is a nervous- ness arising from the idea that the match is al- 136 <3olf ready within his grasp. His over-quick imagina- tion conjures for him a vision of victory which makes his pulses beat unduly fast and interferes with the "douce" serenity of his spirit and of his game. He gets frightened by his own success. Perhaps in match-play this feeling is less common than the pleasing confidence which success more often engenders; but nearly eveiy one is aware of a similar sensation in score play. Over and over again has a man gone out in a fine score, and the sheer prospect of victory has unmanned him and made him spoil himself on the way home. The more we can engage our attention with the stroke which is before us at the moment the less we shall be affected by the prospect or the retro- spect. It is thus that the man of slow imagination has the advantage. His vision is not clouded by ghosts of his bunkered past or second-sighted fancies of a future unlikely to be realized. " It's dogged as docs it," is the phrase quoted out of the mouth of an illiterate man by one of our greal thinkers. He used it of the quality which wins English b;iftlan&fcappfnfl 149 comparative merits of those who receive twelve strokes, or thereabouts, and one for the people who are in the lowest grade of golf. Thus you will have the best chance of arriving at justice for the whole body of players. So far we have spoken entirely of competitions by score. A modification, and an exceedingly in- genious one, has been lately introduced into the golfing world under the name of Colonel Bogey. Colonel Bogey, as his name implies, is a sort of ghost ; and against him all the players who enter for the Bogey competition have to match them- selves. The score of Colonel Bogey is fixed by the committee of the club, or by some person in authority naming the number of strokes which the ghostly Colonel is supposed to take to each hole. This score is fixed before the golfers go out to play ; so that at each hole the player knows exactly what he has to do in order to halve with or win from his ghostly opponent. At the con- clusion of the round, the cards are handed in, and the man who has beaten Colonel Bogey by most holes, or been defeated by him by fewest holes, is the winner of the competition. If two or more have tied, on this showing, the cards of the win- ners are compared against each other, and he who is one or more holes up, as against the 150 (Bolt other or others, is declared the aosolute win- ner. The merit of this plan is that it enables a large number of competitors to be brought together, and their performance to be tested by the result of a single round, while they are all the while playing match-play— i. e., by holes — and not score- play. There is no doubt that match-play is the original idea of the game of golf. Score play is but a device for bringing a number of players to- gether so that their merits in a single round may be compared. So the invention of Colonel Bogey combines these two advantages. In a match of this sort it is evident that the odds given to each man must be not only named in the gross, but that the holes at which he is to take these odds must also be stated. And this also is determined by a body having authority, such as the committee of the club. There is usually a printed card informing players at what holes three strokes in the round are to be taken, at what holes four strokes, and so on. Should a, player receive more than eighteen Btrokes on the round, there will be some holes at which he will receive two st rokes. But in match-play a player will not receive as many strokes as he would receive if playing IbanMcappfng 101 by score. The reason of this is that the inferior player, generally speaking, is more unsteady than the better player — he is more liable to take a very large number over one or more holes at which he comes to grief ; he is less able to ex- tricate himself from difficulties. It is probable that at one hole, at least, on the round, he will lose several strokes more than he will gain on any other hole from a stronger and more steady opponent. But this consideration becomes of far less weight in a whole match. The hole is lost, whether to Bogey or to a mundane opponent, and there is an end of it. He loses one hole, in- stead of a formidable number of strokes. Two- thirds or three-eighths of the just number of odds in score-play seems to be recognized as about the fair proportion in hole-play ; and generally speak- ing an odd fraction is determined in favor of the giver of odds. Colonel Bogey is an estimable person, and we fully expect to find this method of handicapping come more and more into general favor. It is certainly more pleasant to play a hole match, even against an opponent of supernatural accuracy, than to play that horrid score game, with the ever-present fear of an impossible lie and a double figure in the score as its result. The score of Colonel Bogey, who is a scratch- 153 <3olf player, is generally fixed on the assumption that the Colonel makes no mistakes, and that if he can reach the green with any iron club he will not fail to hole out in two more. It is a high, but not an absolutely heroic standard ; but it must always be remembered that the Colonel is affected by no eccentricities of wind or weather, and that he never gets a bad lie, loses his nerve or misses a short putt. It is usual, as we have implied, to make handi- capping for hole-play a simple matter of arith- metical deduction from the odds given in score- play. This is a rough-and-ready method which might be better; for some men are conspicuously better score-players than match-players — others are markedly the reverse. The man who gets eighteen points, say, in score-play by reason of his woeful unsteadiness will be better off with twelve in match-play ; whereas a man who gets eighteen because he is such a poor driver, though a steady one, will he much worse off with twelve in match- play. The steady man scarcely lias it in him to halve an occasional hole with the scratch-player ; whereas the unsteady man, in an occasional bril- liant interval, can do a hole .-is well ;is anybody. A scratch-player would far rather give the un- Bteady one eighteen strokes and play by score; "IbanMcapptnfl 153 but to the steady potterer he would far rather give twelve strokes and play him a match by holes. But our general system of handicapping — in mercy to the kandicapper, whose duties are already quite sufficiently arduous and complicated — takes no note of these fine differences. Never- theless, in handicapping for private matches, the scratch-player — who seldom arrives at this pitch of excellence without a course of experience which has made him wary — may certainly with justice take a note of it, and arrange the plan of campaign conformably. Perhaps, however, this is such a fine and diffi- cult difference that the handicappers do wisely to ignore it. But there is a case to which the arithmetical method is very commonly applied and to which a certain modification should be made in its application. "We refer to the case of foursome competitions. The common method here is to add together the points of each partner and give the combined pair the sum of these points divided by two. It is very simple and it sounds as if it ought to be very right ; but in point of fact it is not so. The reason of its failure is that a combination of a strong player with a weak player will ordinarily defeat a combination of two medium players, though the sum of the 154 ©Olf individual handicaps of each pair respectively may be identical. Some of the very finest four- some rounds have been made by a strong player in combination with a weak but steady partner. So fully is this realized that some golfers, who are by no means strong when playing their own ball, are quite celebrated as partners in a four- some. The late Mr. John Blackwood was a well- known case in point, and Captain Molesworth, E. X., is another. The truth is, that if a man be a good approacher and putter, thirty or forty yards' deficiency in the drive becomes of very little moment when a long driver is playing the alternate strokes. Therefore we would urge most strongly on handicap committees the advisability of taking this fact into their calculations when a foursome competition is forward, and suggest that a special handicap, which should take into account the strength of the combinations as well as of the individuals, would produce much better results. A last word with regard t<> the manifold dm as of the handicapper relates to competitions in which holesaregiven in lieu of strokes. IVonsense is often talked in this regard, as in others. Some contend that, if A can give 15 three holes up and B can give three holes up, it follows that A IbanMcapping 155 can give C six holes up. The absurdity of this is evident if it be supposed, for illustration's sake, that A can give B nine holes up, and 13 can give C nine holes up. It is pretty clear that A would not have a very good chance of winning against C if he gave him eighteen holes up. It is a ver- sion of the old fallacy of Achilles and the tor- toise. A more pertinent question is the relation between odds given by strokes and odds given by holes. Roughly speaking, between good players, a third — or six strokes — is equivalent to some- thing a little over three holes up, with eighteen to play. But when we come to low grades of golf, holes up become relatively more valuable, because a third means more between better players than between inferior ones. Between good players there is seldom a differ- ence of more than a stroke at any given hole ; between bad players it is seldom that the differ- ence is so little as one stroke — therefore, there is far less chance of the stroke given as odds beino- of service. But the three holes up are solid facts, which must have weight in the result. This again, then, is a subtle point which the handi- capper should not neglect if he has to arrange for a competition in which holes are to be given. Other fanciful modes of handicapping, such as 156 eoif playing with but one club against an opponent with a whole set — or permission to say " Bo ! ,J three times on a round in order to put the adver- sary off his stroke — do not need discussion ; but we would close this chapter by again reminding the golfer that the handicapper is a person who voluntarily and without remuneration accepts a deal of trouble, that it is the duty of every golfer to make the handicapper's task as little difficult and as little unpleasant as possible, and that it is in the very Avorst taste to grumble at the efforts of those who, however unsuccessfully, have pre- sumably done their best. When the handicapper has himself to be handi- capped it is advisable that he should leave the committee-room and permit his colleagues to settle his handicap without his assistance. Cbe IRulea 157 CHAPTEE VIII THE KULES ^ The rules of golf are less an invented canon than a natural growth. It is from St. Andrews that all clubs, more or less literally, took their rules — the original stock was of St. Andrews growth ; but since the St. Andrews rules, until recently, dealt with such special features as the Eden, the burn and the station-master's garden and so forth, other clubs were not able to make use of the St. Andrews rules in full, by reason of the presence of these purely local enactments. There- fore the St. Andrews Club, in response to a very generally expressed desire for uniformity, and for some code which might be universal, did, in Sep- tember, 1891, adopt a scheme laid before them by a sub-committee, whereby the rules, which are of general application, are printed as one body, with the local by-laws, under a separate heading, ap- pended thereto. Thus all clubs are now able to transcribe the general body of rules and adopt them for their own use, and to substitute for the 158 <3olf St. Andrews local by-laws, such by-laws as the individual features of their own links may make requisite. £ We give, therefore, both the general rules, which may be universally used, and the St. Andrews local by-laws as a pattern of legislation for other localities. We append also a table showing the length of the respective holes on the Royal and Ancient Links, which, in the quality of fine length of holes, excels every other; and further, we give a table showing at what holes strokes are to be taken in the competition for the Jubilee Yase, for this table, too, may be found a useful model by other clubs. At the end is a glossary of the technical terms in common use in the game. Since the publication of the last edition of this book a committee, under the name of the Rules Committee, has been appointed by the Royal and Ancient Golf ( Hub of St. Andrews. It consists of some fifteen members, all being members of the Royal and Ancient Club, but at the same time — so wide is this great ( Hub's membership -representa- tiveof golfing opinion in all the corners of Great Britain. The office of the members of this Com- mittee, which is a permanent body, is to give an- swers on any vexed questions of the rules that £be IRules 159 are submitted for their decision, to act as in- terpreters of the rules as at present constituted; and at the moment of writing they are consider ing the project of verbally revising the whole body of the rules. Their functions, however, are primarily interpretative, not legislative, and even their interpretations only have a temporary au- thority — that is to say until the ensuing general meeting of the lioyal and Ancient Club to which they are submitted, and by which they are either sent into limbo by rejection or converted into law by confirmation. This Committee, therefore, thus appointed and constituted, forms that central body, invested with recognized authority, for the de- cision of most points of golfing law, that golfers in general, and especially English golfers, have been asking for many years past, but have never been able to arrive at until the Royal and Ancient Club took the steps described. RULES FOR THE GAME OF GOLF 1. The Game of Golf is played by two or more sides, each playing its own ball. A side may consist of one or more persons. 2. The game consists in each side playing a ball from a tee into a hole by successive strokes, and 1G0 <3olf the hole is won by the side holing its ball in the fewest strokes, except as otherwise provided for in the rules. If two sides hole out in the same number of strokes, the hole is halved. 3. The teeing-ground shall be indicated by two marks placed in a line at right angles to the course, and the player shall not tee in front of, nor on either side of, these marks, nor more than two club lengths behind them. A ball played from outside the limits of the teeing-ground, as thus defined, may be recalled by the opposite side. The holes shall be 4J inches in diameter, and at least 4 inches deep. 4. The ball must be fairly struck at, and not pushed, scraped or spooned, under penalty of the loss of the hole. Any movement of the club which is intended to strike the ball is a stroke. 5. The game commences by each side playing a ball from the first teeing-ground. In a match with two or more on a side, the partners shall ^--Strike off alternately from the tecs, and shall strike alternately during the play »>l* the hole. The players who are to strike against each other shall be named at starting, and shall continue in the same order during the match. The player who shall play first on each side shall be named by his own side. Cbe IRulea 161 In case of failure to agree, it shall be settled by lot or toss which skle shall have the option of leading. 6. If a player shall play when his partner should have done so, his side shall lose the hole, except in the case of the tee shot, when the stroke may be recalled at the option of the opponents. 7. The side winning a hole shall lead in start- ing for the next hole, and may recall the oppo- nent's stroke should he play out of order. This privilege is called the " honor." On starting for a new match, the winner of the long match in the previous round is entitled to the " honor." Should the first match have been halved, the winner of the last hole gained is entitled to the " honor." 8. One round of the Links — generally 18 holes — is a match, unless otherwise agreed upon. The match is won by the side which gets more holes ahead than there remain holes to be played, or by the side winning the last hole when the match was all even at the second last hole. If both sides have won the same number, it is a halved match. 9. After the balls are struck from the tee, the ball farthest from the hole to which the parties are playing shall be played first, except as other- wise provided for in the rules. Should the wrong ii 162 <3olt side play first, the opponent may recall the stroke before his side is played. 10. Unless with the opponent's consent, a ball struck from the tee shall not be changed, touched or moved before the hole is played out, under the penalty of one stroke, except as otherwise provided for in the rules. 11. In playing through the green, all loose im- pediments, within a club's length of a ball which is not lying in or touching a hazard, may be re- moved, but loose impediments which are more than a club's length from the ball shall not be removed under the penalty of one stroke. 12. Before striking at the ball, the player shall not move, bend or break anything fixed or grow- ing near the ball, except in the act of placing his feet on the ground for the purpose of addressing the ball, and in soling his club to address the ball, under the penalty of the loss of the hole, except as provided for in Rule 18. 13. A ball stuck fast in wet ground or sand may be taken out and replaced loosely in the hole which it has made. 1 I. When a ball lies in or touches a hazard, the club shall not touch the ground, nor shall anything be touched <>r moved before the player strikes at the ball, except that the player may Zbc IRules 163 place his feet firmly on the ground for the pur- pose of addressing the ball, under the penalty of the loss of the hole. But if in the backward as in the downward swing, any grass, bent, whin, or other growing substance, or the side of a bunker, a wall, paling, or other immovable obstacle be touched, no pen- alty shall be incurred. 15. A " hazard " shall be any bunker of what- ever nature : — water, sand, loose earth, mole hills, paths, roads or railways, whins, bashes, rushes, rabbit scrapes, fences, ditches, or anything which is not the ordinary green of the course, except sand blown on to the grass by wind, or sprinkled on grass for the preservation of the Links, or snow or ice, or bare patches on the course. 16. A player or a player's caddie shall not press down or remove any irregularities of sur- face near the ball, except at the teeing-ground, under the penalty of the loss of the hole. 17. If any vessel, wheel-barrow, tool, roller, grass-cutter, box, or other similar obstruction has been placed upon the course, such obstruction may be removed. A ball lying on or touching such obstruction, or on clothes, or nets, or on ground under repair or temporarily covered up or opened, may be lifted and dropped at the 164 Golf nearest point of the course, but a ball lifted in a hazard shall be dropped in the hazard. . A ball lying in a golf hole or flag hole, may be lifted and dropped not more than a club's length behind such hole. 18. When a ball is completely covered with fog, bent, whins, etc., only so much thereof shall be set aside as that the player shall have a view of his ball before he plays, whether in a line with the hole or otherwise. 19. "When a ball is to be dropped, the player shall drop it. lie shall front the hole, stand erect behind the hazard, keep the spot from which the ball was lifted (or in the case of running water, the spot at which it entered) in a line between him and the hole, and drop the ball behind him from his head, standing as far behind the hazard as he may please. l ; o. When the balls in play lie within six inches of each other — measured from their nearest points — the ball nearer the hole shall be lifted until the other is played, and shall then be replaced as nearly as possible in its original position. Should the ball farther from the hole be accidentally moved in so doing, it shall be replaced, Should the lie of the lifted ball be altered by the oppo- nent in playing, it may be placed in a lie near to, Ebe IRutes 165 and as nearly as possible similar to, that from which it was lifted. 21. If the ball lie or be lost in water, the player may drop a ball, under the penalty of one stroke. 22. Whatever happens by accident to a ball in motion, such as its being deflected or stopped by any agency outside the match, or by the fore- caddie, is a " rub of the green," and the ball shall be played from where it lies. Should a ball lodge in anything moving, such ball, or if it cannot be recovered, another ball shall be dropped as nearly as possible at the spot where the object was when the ball lodged in it. But if a ball at rest be dis- placed by any agency outside the match, the player shall drop it or another ball as nearly as possible at the spot where it lay. On the putting-green the ball may be replaced by hand. 23. If the player's ball strike, or be accidentally moved by an opponent, or an opponent's caddie or clubs, the opponent loses the hole. 24. If the player's ball strike, or be stopped by himself or his partner, or either of their caddies or clubs, or if, while in the act of playing, the player strike the ball twice, his side loses the hole. 25. If the player, when not making a stroke, or his partner or either of their caddies touch their 1GG <3olf side's ball, except at the tee, so as to move it, or by touching anything cause it to move, the penalty is one stroke. 26. A ball is considered to have been moved if it leave its original position in the least degree and stop in another; but if a player touch his ball and thereby cause it to oscillate, without causing it to leave its original position, it is not moved in the sense of Rule 25. 27. A player's side loses a stroke if he play the opponent's ball, unless (1) the opponent then play the player's ball, whereby the penalty is- canceled, and the hole must be played out with the balls thus exchanged, or (2) the mistake occur through wrong information given by the opponent, in which case the mistake, if discovered before the opponent has played, must be rectilied by placing a bull ;is nearly as possible where the opponent's ball lay. If it be discovered before either side has struck oil' at the tee that one side lias played out the previous hole with the ball of a party not engaged in the match, that side loses that hole. 28. If a ball be lost, the player's side loses the hole. A ball shall be held as lost if it be not found within live minutes after the search is be- Cbc IRules 1G7 29. A ball must be played wherever it lies, or the hole be given up, except as otherwise provided for in the Rules. 30. The term " Putting-Green " shall mean the ground within 20 yards of the hole, excepting hazards. 31. All loose impediments may be removed from the putting-green, except the opponent's ball when at a greater distance from the player's than six inches. 32. In a match of three or more sides, a ball in any degree lying between the player and the hole must be lifted, or, if on the putting-green, holed out. 33. When the ball is on the putting-green, no mark shall be placed, nor line drawn as a guide. The line to the hole may be pointed out, but the person doing so may not touch the ground with the hand or club. The player ma) 7 have his own or his partner's caddie to stand at the hole, but none of the play- ers or their caddies may move so as to shield the ball from, or expose it to, the wind. The penalty for any breach of this rule is the loss of the hole. 34. The player, or his caddie, may remove (but not press down) sand, earth, worm casts or snow 168 <3olf lying around the hole or on. the line of his putt. This shall be done by brushing lightly with the hand only across the putt and nut along it. The putting line must not be touched by club, hand or foot, except as above authorized, or immediately in front of the ball in the act of addressing it, under the penalty of the loss of the hole. 35. Either side is entitled to have the flag-stick removed when approaching the hole. If the ball rest against the flag-stick when in the hole, the player shall be entitled to remove the stick, and, if the ball fall in, it shall be considered as holed out in the previous stroke. 36. A player shall not play until the opponent's ball shall have ceased to roll, under the penalty of one stroke. Should the player's ball knock in the opponent's ball, the latter shall be counted as holed out in the previous stroke. If, in playing, the player's ball displace the opponent's ball, the opponent shall have the option of replacing it. :'.;. A player shall not ask for advice, nor be knowingly advised aboul the game by word, look or gesture from any one except his own caddie, or his partner <>;• partner's caddie, under the pen all V of t he loss of t he hole. 38. [fa ball split into separate pieces, another Cbe 1Rule6 160 ball may be put down where the largest portion lies, or if two pieces are apparently of equal size, it may be put where either piece lies, at the option of the player. If a ball crack or become unplayable, the player may change it, on intimat- ing to his opponent his intention to do so. 39. A penalty stroke shall not be counted the stroke of a player, and shall not affect the rotation of play. 40. Should any dispute arise on any point, the players have the right of determining the party or parties to whom the dispute shall be referred, but should they not agree, either party may refer it to the Green Committee of the Green where the dispute occurs, and their decision shall be final. Should the dispute not be covered by the Eules of Golf, the arbiters must decide it by equity. SPECIAL EULES FOR MEDAL PLAY 1. In Club competitions, the competitor doing the stipulated course in the fewest strokes shall be the winner. 2. If the lowest score be made by two or more competitors, the ties shall be decided bv another i;o <3oit round to be played cither on the same or on any other day as the Captain, or, in his absence, the Secretary, shall direct. 3. New holes shall be made for the Medal Round, and thereafter no member shall play any stroke on a putting-green before compet- ing. 4. The scores shall be kept by a special marker, or by the competitors noting each other's scores. The scores marked shall be checked at the finish of each hole. On completion of the course, the score of the player shall be signed by the person keeping the score and handed to the Secre- tary. 5. If a ball be lost, the player shall return as nearly as possible to the spot where the ball was struck, tee another ball, and lose a stroke. If the lost ball be found before he has struck the other ball, the first shall continue in play. P>. If the player's ball strike himself, or his clubs or caddie, or if, in the act of playing, the player strike the ball twice, the penalty shall be one stroke. 7. If a competitor's ball strike the otherplayer, or his clubs or caddie, it is a " rub of the green," and the ball shall be played from where it lies. £be IRules 171 8. A ball may, under a penalty of two strokes, be lifted out of a difficulty of any description, and be teed behind same. 9. All balls shall be holed out, and when play is on the putting-green, the flag shall be removed, and the competitor whose ball is nearest the hole shall have the option of holing out first, or of lifting his ball, if it be in such a position that it might, if left, give an advantage to the other competitor. Throughout the green a competitor can have the other competitors ball lifted, if he find that it interferes with his stroke. 10. A competitor may not play with a profes- sional, and he may not receive advice from any one but his caddie. A forecaddie may be employed. 11. Competitors may not discontinue play be- cause of bad weather. 12. The penalty for a breach of any rule shall be disqualification. 13. Any dispute regarding the play shall be determined by the Green Committee. 14. The ordinary Rules of Golf, so far as they are not at variance with these special rules, shall apply to medal play. 173 Golf CHAPTER IX etiquette of golf The following customs belong to the estab- lished Etiquette of Golf and should be observed by all golfers. 1. No player, caddie or onlooker should move or talk during a stroke. 2. No player should play from the tee until the party in front have played their second strokes and are out of range, nor play to the putting- green till the party in front have holed out and moved away. 3. The player who leads from the tee should be allowed to play before his opponent tees his ball. I. Players who have holed out should not try their put Is over again when other players are following them. 5. Players looking for a lost ball must allow any oilier match coming up to puss them. 0. A party playing three or more balls must allow a, two-ball match to pass them. etiquette of Golf 173 7. A party playing a shorter round must allow a two-ball match playing the whole round to pass them. 8. A player should not putt at the hole when the flag is in it. 9. The reckoning of the strokes is kept by the terms: "the odd," " two more," "three more," etc., and "one off three," "one off two," "the like." The reckoning of the holes is kept by the terms : so many " holes up " — or " all even " — and —so many " to play." 10. Turf cut or displaced by a stroke in play- ing should be at once replaced. 174 <3olt GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS EM- PLOYED IN THE GAME OF GOLF Addressing the ball. Putting one's self in position to strike the ball. Approach. When the player is sufficiently near the hole to be able to drive the ball to the putting-green his stroke is called the " approach-shot." Baff. To strike the ground with the " sole" of the club- head in playing, and so send ball in air. Bafiy. A wooden club to play lofting shots. Bent. Rush, bent-grass. Bogey. Usually given the title of Colonel. A phantom who is credited with a certain score for each hole, against which score each player is competing. Bone. A piece of rain's horn inserted in the sole of the club to prevent it from splitting. Brassy. A wooden club with a brass sole. Break-club. An obstacle lying near a ball of such a nature as might break the club when striking at the ball. Bulger. A dub with a convex face. Bunker. Generally any rough, hazardous ground — more st ricl ly . a sand-pit. Bye. Any bole or holes thai renin in to be played after the match is finished. They are played for singly; unless the sides agree to make another match of them. Caddio. A person who carries the golfer's clubs, and who can usually give him advice in regard to the game. Clock. An iron-headed olub of considerable driving power and sometimes used for putting. Glossary 175 Club. The implement with which the ball is struck. The heads are of three kinds — wood, wood with a brass sole, and iron only. Course. That portion of the Links on which the game ought to be played, generally bounded on either side by rough ground or other hazard. Cup. A small hole in the course, usually one made by the stroke of some previous player. Dead. A ball is said to be " dead " when it lies so near the hole that the " putt" is a dead certainty. A ball is said to fall ' ' dead " when it does not run after alight- ing. Dormy. One side is said to be "dormy" when it is as many holes ahead as there remain holes to play. (This word is probably derived from the French, like many Scottish terms.) Draw. To drive widely to the left hand. (Identical in its results with Hookfand Screw. Driver. See Play-Club. Face. First, the slope of a bunker or hillock ; second, the part of the club-head which strikes the ball. Flat. A club is said to be "flat" when its head is at a very obtuse angle to the shaft. Fog. Moss, rank grass. Fore ! A warning cry to any person in the way of the stroke. (Contracted from "before.") Foursome. A match in which two play on each side. Gobble. A rapid straight "putt" into the hole, such that, had the ball not gone in, it would have gone some distance beyond. Grassed. Said of a club whose face is slightly " spooned " or sloped backward. Green. First, the whole Links : second, the putting- ground around the different holes. Grip. First, the part of the handle covered with leather, by which the club is grasped ; second, the grasp itself. Half-one. A handicap of a stroke deducted every second hole. 17G <3olf Half-shot. Less than a full swing. Halved. A hole is said to be " halved" when each side takes the same number of strokes. A " halved match " is a " drawn game" — that is, the players have proved to be equal. Hanging. A "hanging" ball is one which lies on a down- ward slope. Hazard. A general term for bunker, long grass, road, water, whin, molehill, or other bad ground. Head. This word is a striking specimen of incongruity and mixed metaphor. A head is the lowest part of a club, and possesses, among other mysterious character- istics, a sole, a heel, a toe or nose, a neck and a face ! Heel. First, the part of the head nearest the shaft ; second, to hit from this part, and send the ball to the right hand. Hole. First, the four-inch hole lined with iron ; the holes going out are marked with white, and those coming in with red Hags. Second, the whole space between any two of these. Honor. The right to play off first from the tee. Hook. See Draw. Hose. The socket, in iron-headed clubs, into which the wooden shaft fits. Iron. A Hid. made <>f the material its name implies, with the head more or less laid back to loft a hall. A most deadly weapon in a good player's hands. Jerk. In " jerking." the club should Btrike with a quick cut behind the ball, and stop on reaching the ground. Lie. First, the inclination of a, club when held on the -round in a natural position for striking; second, the situation of a hall, good <>r bad. Like. See under Odds. Like-as-wo-lio. When both sides have played the same number of st rokes. Links. The open downs or heath on which golf is played. Loft. To elevate the ball. Long odds. When a player has to play a stroke more Glossary 177 than his adversary, who is much further on — that is, nearer the hole. Made. A player, or his ball, is said to be " made" when his ball is sufficiently near the hole to be played on to the putting-green next shot. Mashie. A club which, both in its make and its uses, is a compromise between the niblick and the iron. Match. First, the sides playing against each other; second, the game itself. Miss the globe. To fail to strike the ball, either by swinging right over the top of it, or by hitting the ground behind it, is counted a stroke. Neck. The crook of the head where it joins the shaft. Niblick. A small, narrow-headed, heavy iron club, used when the ball lies in bad places, as ruts or whins, etc. Nose. The point or front portion of the club-head. Odds. First, means the handicap given by a strong player to a weaker in a single match, consisting of either one, two, three or more holes to start with or one stroke per hole, or every alternate hole, or at every third hole, etc. ; second, to have played ' ; the odds " is to have played one stroke more than your adversary. Some other terms used in counting the game will be most easily explained here all together. If your opponent has played one stroke more than you — that is, "the odds"— your next stroke will be " the like ; " if two strokes more— that is, " the two more " — your next stroke will be : ' the one off two ;" if " three more," " the one off three," and so on. One-off-two, One-ofF-three, etc. See under Odds. Play-club. A wooden-headed club, with full-length shaft, more or less supple : with it the ball can be driven to the greatest distance. It is used when the ball lies well. Press. To strive to recover lost ground by special hard hitting — a very dangerous thing to attempt. Putt. To play the delicate game close to the hole. (Pro- nounce u as in but.) 12 178 Oolf Putter. An upright, stiff-shafted, wooden-headed club (some use iron heads), used when the ball is on the put- ting-green. Rind. A strip of cloth under the leather to thicken the grip. Rub on the green. A favorable or unfavorable knock to the ball, for which no penalty is imposed, and which must be submitted to. Scare. The narrow part of the club-head by which it is glued to the handle. SclafF. When the club-head strikes the ground behind the ball, and follows on with a ricochet. Screw. See Draw. Scrufl. Slightly razing the grass in striking. Set. A full complement of clubs. Shaft. The stick or handle of the club. Sole. The flat bottom of the club-head. Spoons. Wooden-headed clubs of three lengths — long, middle and short : the head is scooped, so as to loft the ball. Spring. The degree of suppleness in the shaft. Square. When the game stands evenly balanced, neither side being any holes ahead. Stance. The position of the player's feet when address- ing himself to the ball. Steal. To hold an unlikely "putt" from a distance, but not by a " gobble." Stroke. The act of hitting the ball with the club, or the attempt to do so. Stymie. When yum- opponent's ball lies in the line of your " putt." Swing. The sweep of the Hub in driving. Swipo. A full driving stroke. Toe. The pat of sand on which the ball is placed for the first >-t roke each h<>]<'. Third. A handicap of a stroke deducted every third hole. Glossary 179 Toe. Another name for the nose of the club Top. To bit the ball above its center. Two-more, Three-more, etc. See under Odds. Upright. A club is said to be "upright " when its head is not at a very obtuse angle to the shaft. Whins. Furze or gorse. Whipping. The pitched twine uniting the head and handle. Wrist Shot. Less than half a shot, generally played with an iron club. POPULAR HAND-BOOKS H» ' ■ '-' ■ -Ig^gaBWM 1 M. ||w» - H.ARRISON -