APPROACH play is admittedly the very backbone of the game of golf. In a previous chapter I (Practice - The Foundation Of Excellence) have tried to point out that many golfers do not lay sufficient stress on the advantages of long and accurate wooden club play, but in doing so, I had chiefly in my mind long driving in relation to the game as played by the first-class players. One must take it as granted that a player with any pretensions to be considered a first-class exponent of the game must of necessity approach with at least a comparative degree of scientific accuracy. If he cannot, even the very finest wooden club imaginable will not serve to keep him in the first flight.

To the average golfer, however, or one may go farther than this and say also the player whose game is bordering on the fringe of first class, the success or lack of success in his game greatly depends upon his approaching. It is the true key to the situation, as an accurate anproach must always meet with its due reward, as once the player has deposited the ball close to the hole with an iron club, there is then no risk of serious disaster. Certainly the player may proceed to throw away any advantage he has gained, by skittling the ball about the green, but the nearer he gets to the hole with his approach shot the less chance there is of his throwing strokes away with his putter. It is easier to lay a five-yard putt dead than to lay a putt of ten to twelve yards sufficiently near to preclude the probability of the succeeding effort missing the hole.

When watching American amateurs play, I could not but come to the conclusion that the weakest part of their game seemed to be their play with iron clubs. They drove well and to my mind are better putters than the average of British players, but their iron play lacked what we term "variety." Moreover, they did not seem to have sufficient control over the club when playing the medium length strokes. I do not think the reason is far to seek, and it lies in the fact that they have learned their game and have had to play mostly over courses of an inland nature, the majority of which call for only one class of iron shot, and that is the high lofting approach.

In the majority of cases this form of stroke will suffice, and it is invariably the safer shot for the approaches on the courses which the American players have to play over. Of course the art of playing the high lofted approach is a very essential portion of any golfer's repertoire. One can do without the ability to play successfully other forms of iron shots, but every player must have some form of command over the shot which is played high in the air and drops to earth more or less vertically, there being so many shots in the course of a year's golf which must be played in this manner, and cannot be played in any other. Again, every approach which has to be played, can be played by lifting the ball high in the air, and I know many players who do not scruple to play all their approaches in this manner, a notable example being the well-known professional, J. H. Taylor.

He is an absolute master of all manner of lofted approaches and never on any account plays a running approach, if he can possibly help it. So much does Taylor utilize the lofted approach that many people believe that he could not play a running approach if he tried, but this is altogether an erroneous opinion, as in cases where it is extremely inadvisable or almost impossible to play his favorite shot, he does not find any extreme difficulty in keeping the ball down with his iron clubs. On the occasions where our championship takes place over the St. Andrews course, he occasionally has recourse to the long, low, running approach shot. But as I have previously mentioned, Taylor is an absolute and complete master of the class of approach shot, in the playing of which the ball remains in the air for the greater portion of its journey and then drops comparatively dead, and he is one of the players who is able to control the trajectory of the flight of the ball. He can play a comparatively low shot when he wishes to do so, and at the same time impart sufficient underspin to the ball to preclude its running far when it comes to earth. It is in this respect that so many players who, like Taylor, favor the high lofted approach are apt to fail when they play this class of shot. They have but one idea in their head, and that is to lift the ball up high in the air and trust to the vertical trajectory of its flight when it is falling. The less they wish the ball to roll after it lands, the higher they try to play it. It is not at all a bad method of playing an approach when there is little or no wind and the green is on the heavy side, as the vertical trajectory in the downward flight of the ball will cause it to drop on the green like a poached egg.

But if conditions are not favorable, there is always an element of danger in playing the shot in this way, as in a high wind the ball will be very much at the mercy of the wind and may be blown many yards away from the intended line. Again, if the ground is at all on the hard side, these high vertical approaches are apt to jump away at extraordinary angles. Any inequality in the ground will affect the ball on landing, for the simple reason that there is comparatively little underspin imparted to the ball, and an iron shot played without underspin is much like a ship without a rudder, it is at the mercy of many influences.

The correct and much the safest way to play these high lofting approaches is by imparting spin to the ball, as a ball with a strong underspin will cut its way through a heavy cross wind, and if hit truly will deviate but little from its pathway. Moreover, the pitching approach with underspin will take such a hold of the ground upon landing that it is but little affected by any inequalities in the ground. The success I attained when in America in 1911 was almost entirely due to my ability to play this form of pitching approach shot, and at the same time