The Complete Golfer

CHAPTER I

GOLF AT HOME 1

The happy golfer--A beginning at Jersey--The Vardon family--An anxious tutor--Golfers come to Grouville--A fine natural course--Initiation as a caddie--Primitive golf--How we made our clubs--Matches in the moonlight--Early progress--The study of methods--Not a single lesson--I become a gardener--The advice of my employer--"Never give up golf"--A nervous player to begin with--My first competition--My brother Tom leaves home--He wins a prize at Musselburgh--I decide for professionalism--An appointment at Ripon.

CHAPTER II

SOME REMINISCENCES 11

Not enough golf--"Reduced to cricket"--I move to Bury--A match with Alexander Herd--No more nerves--Third place in an open competition--I play for the Championship--A success at Portrush--Some conversation and a match with Andrew Kirkaldy--Fifth for the Championship at Sandwich--Second at the Deal tournament--Eighth in the Championship at St. Andrews--I go to Ganton--An invitation to the south of France--The Championship at Muirfield--An exciting finish--A stiff problem at the last hole--I tie with Taylor--We play off, and I win the Championship--A tale of a putter--Ben Sayers wants a "wun'"--What Andrew thought of Muirfield--I win the Championship again at Prestwick--Willie Park as runner-up--My great match with Park--Excellent arrangements--A welcome victory--On money matches in general--My third Championship at Sandwich--My fourth at Prestwick--Golf under difficulties.

CHAPTER III

THE WAY TO GOLF 25

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

CHAPTER IV

THE CHOICE AND CARE OF CLUBS 37

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

CHAPTER V

DRIVING--PRELIMINARIES 52

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

CHAPTER VI

DRIVING--THE SWING OF THE CLUB 64

"Slow back"--The line of the club head in the upward swing--The golfer's head must be kept rigid--The action of the wrists--Position at the top of the swing--Movements of the arms--Pivoting of the body--No swaying--Action of the feet and legs--Speed of the club during the swing--The moment of impact--More about the wrists--No pure wrist shot in golf--The follow-through--Timing of the body action--Arms and hands high up at the finish--How bad drives are made--The causes of slicing--When the ball is pulled--Misapprehensions as to slicing and pulling--Dropping of the right shoulder--Its evil consequences--No trick in long driving--Hit properly and hard--What is pressing and what is not--Summary of the drive.

CHAPTER VII

BRASSY AND SPOON 78

Good strokes with the brassy--Play as with the driver--The points of the brassy--The stance--Where and how to hit the ball--Playing from cuppy lies--Jab strokes from badly-cupped lies--A difficult club to master--The man with the spoon--The lie for the baffy--What it can and cannot do--Character of the club--The stance--Tee shots with the baffy--Iron clubs are better.

CHAPTER VIII

SPECIAL STROKES WITH WOODEN CLUBS 85

The master stroke in golf--Intentional pulling and slicing--The contrariness of golf--When pulls and slices are needful--The stance for the slice--The upward swing--How the slice is made--The short sliced stroke--Great profits that result--Warnings against irregularities--How to pull a ball--The way to stand--The work of the right hand--A feature of the address--What makes a pull--Effect of wind on the flight of the ball--Greatly exaggerated notions--How wind increases the effect of slicing and pulling--Playing through a cross wind--The shot for a head wind--A special way of hitting the ball--A long low flight--When the wind comes from behind.

CHAPTER IX

THE CLEEK AND DRIVING MASHIE 98

A test of the golfer--The versatility of the cleek--Different kinds of cleeks--Points of the driving mashie--Difficulty of continued success with it--The cleek is more reliable--Ribbed faces for iron clubs--To prevent skidding--The stance for an ordinary cleek shot--The swing--Keeping control over the right shoulder--Advantages of the three-quarter cleek shot--The push shot--My favourite stroke--The stance and the swing--The way to hit the ball--Peculiar advantages of flight from the push stroke--When it should not be attempted--The advantage of short swings as against full swings with iron clubs--Playing for a low ball against the wind--A particular stance--Comparisons of the different cleek shots--General observations and recommendations--Mistakes made with the cleek.

CHAPTER X

PLAY WITH THE IRON 112

The average player's favourite club--Fine work for the iron--Its points--The right and the wrong time for play with it--Stance measurements--A warning concerning the address--The cause of much bad play with the iron--The swing--Half shots with the iron--The regulation of power--Features of erratic play--Forced and checked swings--Common causes of duffed strokes--Swings that are worthless.

CHAPTER XI

APPROACHING WITH THE MASHIE 118

The great advantage of good approach play--A fascinating club--Characteristics of a good mashie--Different kinds of strokes with it--No purely wrist shot--Stance and grip--Position of the body--No pivoting on the left toe--The limit of distance--Avoid a full swing--The half iron as against the full mashie--The swing--How not to loft--On scooping the ball--Taking a divot--The running-up approach--A very valuable stroke--The club to use--A tight grip with the right hand--Peculiarities of the swing--The calculation of pitch and run--The application of cut and spin--A stroke that is sometimes necessary--Standing for a cut--Method of swinging and hitting the ball--The chip on to the green--Points of the jigger.

CHAPTER XII

ON BEING BUNKERED 131

The philosopher in a bunker--On making certain of getting out--The folly of trying for length--When to play back--The qualities of the niblick--Stance and swing--How much sand to take--The time to press--No follow-through in a bunker--Desperate cases--The brassy in a bunker--Difficulties through prohibited grounding--Play straight when length is imperative--Cutting with the niblick.

CHAPTER XIII

SIMPLE PUTTING 141

A game within another game--Putting is not to be taught--The advantage of experience--Vexation of missing short putts--Some anecdotes--Individuality in putting--The golfer's natural system--How to find it--And when found make a note of it--The quality of instinct--All sorts of putters--How I once putted for a Championship--The part that the right hand plays--The manner of hitting the ball--On always being up and "giving the hole a chance"--Easier to putt back after overrunning than when short--The trouble of Tom Morris.

CHAPTER XIV

COMPLICATED PUTTS 150

Problems on undulating greens--The value of practice--Difficulties of calculation--The cut stroke with the putter--How to make it--When it is useful--Putting against a sideways slope--A straighter line for the hole--Putting down a hill--Applying drag to the ball--The use of the mashie on the putting-green--Stymies--When they are negotiable and when not--The wisdom of playing for a half--Lofting over the stymie--The run-through method--Running through the stymie--How to play the stroke, and its advantages--Fast greens for fancy strokes--On gauging the speed of a green.

CHAPTER XV

SOME GENERAL HINTS 160

Too much golf--Analysis of good strokes--One's attitude towards one's opponent--Inaccurate counting of strokes--Tactics in match play--Slow couples on the course--Asking for halves--On not holing out when the half is given--Golfing attire--Braces better than belts--Shoes better than boots--How the soles should be nailed--On counting your strokes--Insisting on the rules--Play in frosty weather--Chalked faces for wet days--Against gloves--Concerning clubs--When confidence in a club is lost--Make up your mind about your shot--The golfer's lunch--Keeping the eye on the ball--The life of a rubber-core--A clean ball--The caddie's advice--Forebodings of failure--Experiments at the wrong time--One kind of golf at a time--Bogey beaten, but how?--Tips for tee shots--As to pressing--The short approach and the wayward eye--Swinging too much--For those with defective sight--Your opponent's caddie--Making holes in the bunkers--The golfer's first duty--Swinging on the putting-greens--Practise difficult shots and not easy ones, etc.

CHAPTER XVI

COMPETITION PLAY 177

Its difficulties--Nerves are fatal--The philosophic spirit--Experience and steadiness--The torn card--Too much hurry to give up--A story and a moral--Indifference to your opponent's brilliance--Never slacken when up--The best test of golf--If golf were always easy--Cautious play in medal rounds--Risks to be taken--The bold game in match play--Studying the course--Risks that are foolishly taken--New clubs in competitions--On giving them a trial--No training necessary--As to the pipe and glass--How to be at one's best and keenest--On playing in the morning--In case of a late draw--Watch your opponents.

CHAPTER XVII

ON FOURSOMES 188

The four-ball foursome--Its inferiority to the old-fashioned game--The case of the long-handicap man--Confusion on the greens--The man who drives last--The old-fashioned two-ball foursome--Against too many foursomes--Partners and each other--Fitting in their different games--The man to oblige--The policy of the long-handicap man--How he drove and missed in the good old days--On laying your partner a stymie--A preliminary consideration of the round--Handicapping in foursomes--A too delicate reckoning of strokes given and received--A good foursome and the excitement thereof--A caddie killed and a hole lost--A compliment to a golfer.

Continue reading The Complete Golfer free in the Wunder reader →