Chapter XV: Some General Hints 160

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

CHAPTER XVI

COMPETITION PLAY 177

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

CHAPTER XVII

ON FOURSOMES 188

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

CHAPTER XVIII

GOLF FOR LADIES 198

As to its being a ladies' game--A sport of freedom--The lady on the links--The American lady golfer--English ladies are improving--Where they fail, and why--Good pupils--The same game as the man's--No short swings for ladies--Clubs of too light weight--Their disadvantages--A common fault with the sex--Bad backward swings--The lady who will find out for herself--Foundations of a bad style--The way to success.

CHAPTER XIX

THE CONSTRUCTION OF COURSES 205

Necessity for thought and ingenuity--The long-handicap man's course--The scratch player's--How good courses are made--The necessary land--A long nine-hole course better than a short eighteen--The preliminary survey--A patient study of possibilities--Stakes at the holes--Removal of natural disadvantages--"Penny wise and pound foolish"--The selection of teeing grounds--A few trial drives--The arrangement of long and short holes--The best two-shot and three-shot holes--Bunkers and where to place them--The class of player to cater for--The scratch man's game--The shots to be punished--Bunkers down the sides--The best putting greens--Two tees to each hole--Seaside courses.