This expression, "timing" the stroke, is very vague and indefinite unless the player knows exactly what it means. One frequently hears it used quite wrongly, probably because the word does not in itself suggest what it stands for in this connection. In order that it may be quite clear what actions this word has been selected to represent, I shall add Braid's definition to what I have already said. On page 59 of "Advanced Golf," he says: "In broad principle, timing, of course, is the maintenance of perfect and scientific harmony between the movements of the head of the club and the shaft on the one hand, and those of the arms and the body on the other. . . . The chief object of the timing, simply stated, is to make the moment of impact and the attainment of the supreme force of the swing simultaneous, and the great danger is lest the swing, wound up under such high tension as we have seen, should go off too soon, so to speak."

Certainly, each player should make it her earnest effort to time her stroke correctly. To do so is the only course by which she can hope to become proficient at driving, but she must be very careful to make the timing of the stroke the result of the development of all her movements toward one end, the hitting of the ball. To attempt to do anything at the last instant just before the moment of impact is very unwise, if, indeed, it is not impossible. Players have been advised time after time to "Speed up" the swing during its last foot or so before reaching the ball, or to do something of a "snappy" nature with their wrists at the instant of hitting. Just how these things are to be done no one has made at all clear for the very simple reason that they are not done at all. By this I mean that they are not done in the last fraction of a second before the ball is struck. If, as is the case, the club, as it travels through the lower part of its arc, is going at such speed that when photographed with a camera whose shutter is of the very fastest type, it becomes a blur, then it would clearly be impossible for a player to put on extra speed during the last foot or to "snap" it by jerking her wrists. In other words, the player cannot start any action in the last fraction of a second and keep the club head in its proper arc. Whatever is done immediately before the impact of club and ball must be the natural sequence of her previous actions.