THE fact should be thoroughly established by this time that there is much more to golf than the mere ability to swing the club hard and true. It must be borne in mind that this swinging must be kept up through the eighteen holes of the round and among the diverse circumstances and happenings that will occur in that round. Here is where the matter of individuality intervenes.

I heard it once said of a man, "He is a good golfer because of his wonderful temperament." There was a good deal that was true in the statement, as he played from a handicap which was lower than his style or methods of play would warrant, and, moreover, he continually defeated players who, in the matter of style and the individual strokes played, should certainly have had the best of the argument when playing against him. But with the odds from a physical point of view most apparently all against him, he nevertheless kept on winning the greater percentage of his matches, much to the chagrin and bewilderment of his opponents, who could not fathom how he ever managed to do it. One of his opponents somewhat expressed the opinion of the majority when he remarked, "I cannot make out why that man invariably manages to defeat me, as I can play better golf than he does, and, moreover, always seem to be playing better golf. Nevertheless, he wins the majority of the games that we play together; it's a mystery to me."

Of course, there must be an explanation of such a case, and the obvious one is that the "mystery man" must have been somewhat unduly gifted in the matter of temperament for the winning of matches, much more gifted than the majority of golfers. But in the case of this somewhat remarkable class of players, who win matches which they apparently should lose, there is always a reason to be found for their success. A recently defeated enemy will suggest that it is mainly due to luck, and will probably stigmatize the successful one as one of the luckiest devils unhanged. But while the element of fortune does enter into the game of golf on occasions to a very marked degree, still, year in, year out, the question of good or ill fortune must very much level itself up in the long run. Personally, I am not one of those who believe that luck has a very great bearing upon the career of a golfer, as I hold the opinion that the majority of first-class players are themselves responsible for their great success, or comparative lack of success, and are in no marked manner beholden to the distribution of favors on the part of the Goddess of Fortune. It can never be continued good luck which is the main cause of a golfer invariably winning his matches; there must be more practical reasons for his success, and, taking the case of the "mystery man" I have previously mentioned, a close study of his methods plainly evidenced that in his case it was due to the gift of extreme concentration in the playing of every shot. He never played a really careless shot, and he never stopped trying his utmost from the first tee shot to the last putt.

This power of concentration may have been a natural gift with him, or, on the other hand, to a certain degree it may have been a development, but wherever it came from made not the slightest bit of difference; he had this concentration, and the majority of those he had to meet were not so similarly gifted, and in consequence he won his matches. This ability to concentrate one's powers upon each individual stroke, irrespective of what has occurred in the past or is likely to happen in the future, is one of the greatest gifts a player can possess and from my experience of golfers I have come across very few players who are naturally gifted in this respect.

It is true that some players that I know, without being naturally gifted in this respect, have gradually, by the aid of hard application, developed the habit of concentrating their attention upon each stroke played. This developed habit is a very excellent substitute for the natural gift, but, on the other hand, the player with this substitute is never quite in the same safe position as the player with the natural gift. In the case of the latter no trouble or effort is required to keep his mind on the task, but the former, unless the world is going very well with him at the time, is unconsciously apt to revert to his natural state and allow, if even momentarily, his attention to wander away from the task of hitting the ball.

The two grave dangers to close and absolute concentration are supplied by the possible review of incidents which have happened in the previous play in the match and by anticipation of what may happen in the future. The former is the graver danger of the two in that the mind has a habit of wandering back more to the unfortunate and unpleasant incidents than to the pleasing ones, and the player who grieves for the past is invariably a lost soul. A grievance, even if it is a true and just one, is a terrible thing for a man to carry around with him.

The vein of anticipation is possibly not quite such an evil influence as that of reflection, but the player who cannot refrain from anticipating what may happen in the play to holes which are yet to come, and, moreover, keep on playing those holes in his mind's eye, not only anticipating how he will play them himself but imagining how his enemy may play them, is burdening himself with a deal of useless thought and consideration, as circumstances may be entirely different when the holes actually have to be played. Moreover, the imaginative sketch of what the opponent may do at any particular hole may prove to be entirely erroneous, and in consequence all the premeditated schemes will go awry.

It is bad for the player to reflect upon the past, or anticipate the future when playing in a hand-to-hand encounter, but it is infinitely worse to give rein to these feelings when participating in score play. In truth, one may go so far as to say that the giving way to such an inclination is likely to be absolutely fatal. I speak feelingly on the point, as in my younger years I had a habit, before commencing a medal round, of anticipating the play and possible difficulties to be overcome, to every single hole on the way round. Then, when playing, say, the third hole on the way round, I would find myself imagining how I would get past some particular difficulty at, say, the fifteenth or sixteenth hole. My brain was always working away ahead, puzzling over problems for the future which might never present themselves. It was a habit which I found difficult to overcome, and I never have altogether got the better of it to this day, as I still find my attention wandering away ahead of schedule, and have to pull myself up sharply. It is the curse of an unduly anticipatory brain, and I find the greatest difficulty in reining it in, from participating in the many imaginative pictures which it will persist in weaving.