In the chapter on putting I spoke at some length on the subject of the grip. Although I stated there that I should strongly advise the modified overlapping grip for women, it is not imperative that women should adopt this method of holding the club, nor, in fact, that they should use any overlapping grip at all. A great many women have already formed the habit of holding the hands separately and, if they are doing well, there is no reason why they should change and go through the uncomfortable period of accustoming themselves to another fashion of holding the club. The essentials of a good grip are that the hands be pressed closely together, that the club be held at the base of the fingers and not in the palms of the hands, and that the hands be held so that the V's formed by the thumbs and first fingers are well toward the top of the shaft. If a player's grip is such that she combines in it these three essential qualities, she may rest content. Certainly she should not let any one persuade her to attempt the Vardon grip, as it is extremely doubtful whether it is ever desirable for a woman, and it is surely not worth while for any one to give up a good and satisfactory grip in order to cultivate it.

While we are speaking of the grip, another aspect of the same subject must not be neglected nor forgotten. This is the comparative strength of the hold of the left hand and of the right hand. There has been so much confusion and misapprehension on this subject that few players who have not given it especial thought can tell exactly what their ideas on the subject are. All through the books that have been written on golf there are constant references to the left hand as the one that must take charge of the stroke. We find frequently such remarks as, "now let the left come into play," "grip firmly with the left and allow the right to relax," "in this part of the stroke the left takes the lead, the right acting simply as guide." There are, in fact, so many admonitions of this kind that it would be hopeless as well as unnecessary to hunt them all out and to quote them with their context. In summing them all up, however, I may say that, in rather an indefinite way, they give one to understand that, at certain times and in certain places, the right hand gives up its natural mastery and is superseded by the left. The curious fact about all of this is that when the great players who have written these books come down to saying what they themselves do, they never admit that in their own game they force the left hand into the place of supremacy. They will preface their advice by saying "The theory is . . . ," or "you should do . . . ," but when it comes to this question of giving up their own strong right hands they never say, "I do it."

This notion of advancing the left hand into unnatural leadership has, in a more or less confused form, been clouding players' minds for a long time. The only man to face the question and to clear it away as a question once for all has been Mr. P. A. Vaile. In "The Soul of Golf" he argued the point exhaustively, and has completely routed those persons who had advocated for others the favoring of the left hand. It would be an ideal condition for golf players if both hands were of equal strength because in such a case it would be much easier to maintain the proper balance between them, and the strokes could be made more evenly and smoothly. However, even if the right hand and the left were of equal strength, the fact would still remain that, on account of the anatomical arrangements of the arms, the left hand, at the time of hitting the ball when the most force is needed if it is to be a long shot, or the greatest delicacy if it is to be a shot requiring nice calculation of distance and direction, is working backward. The energetic housekeeper who wishes to drive a nail into the wall certainly would not hold the hammer in her left hand, and, keeping the back of her wrist to the wall, attempt to strike the nail. If she is a right-handed person, as I am of course supposing she is, the result of such an attempt would be disastrous to the plaster if to nothing else. There can be no doubt that with normally constituted persons, the right hand is the master hand. Why, then, anyone should try to supplant it with the left which is not only weaker, but is also working at a disadvantage, is incomprehensible. Let us once and for all forget such false doctrines and give to each hand no more and no less than its due. It follows, then, that the endeavor of the player should be always to grasp the club firmly with both hands, and to allow no thought of separating their functions to enter her mind.

Nothing can be more dangerous, especially for women, than heeding any instruction that involves relaxing the hold on the club. In putting or in making a short approach shot when there is the possibility of the ball's going too far, it is exceedingly easy to allow the club to become loose in the hands. The player instinctively feels that in curtailing her shot she must let up on her grip. The result is always a weak, uncertain stroke that sends the ball anywhere except the place where it is expected to go. The habit of holding the club firmly with both hands cannot be cultivated too soon or too persistently; at the same time, the player must not fall into the way of clutching at the club so rigidly that the muscles of the wrist are stiffened and prevented from free action. Men such as Vardon and Braid may be able to allow themselves the freedom of relaxing their grip now and then, but it must be remembered that what they would consider a light hold on the club is, when one remembers the strength of their hands and fingers, as firm as the average woman's tightest grip. Relaxation of the muscles, except in unusual cases, means, for a woman, looseness of hold and should be avoided from the start to the finish of her game.

There are so many preliminaries to this wonderful operation of driving a golf ball that it is no wonder that, by the time a player has gone through all the stages of making ready for the stroke, she finds it impossible to concentrate her mind on hitting the ball. It is inability to fix her thoughts entirely on the act of hitting that, at the last minute, spoils many a carefully arranged shot. The only way to overcome the distracting effect of preparation is to make the preparation become automatic. This can be done only after long practice. It takes a very experienced player to tee her ball, look toward the hole, decide how long a shot and what kind of a stroke she must make, take her stance and make her address, without allowing one doubt or one question to enter her mind that will distract her attention from hitting the ball. The self-confidence that allows a player to tee up her ball and hit it, without showing a trace of hesitancy or uncertainty, can be acquired only by having thought over and practiced previously all the movements that make the shot up to the time the club begins its downward journey to the ball. It is only by having settled all questions to her satisfaction and by repeating certain motions so many times that they become mechanical, that the player can reach the point of proficiency where she can free her thoughts of all complications and give her whole mind to striking the ball.

Miss Cecil Leith Playing a niblick shot from the rough.

It is for this reason that it is profitable to study the preliminaries to the drive one by one, and in their correct order, so that they may be settled when the player's mind is not under the tension that the necessity of action creates. We have already considered the stance and the grip, and now we reach the next step, which is the method of address.