Putting, writes Vardon, is a 'game within a game,' and he might have added that the game within is greater than the game without. He also says that you cannot teach a man to putt, which I hold to be perfectly true. What you can do is to tell the man plainly why it is he cannot putt, and that is very seldom done. There is one point I might mention at the start, and that is, that a large number of golfers are too greedy in their expectations. Nowadays, when many of the greens are some forty yards square, for a player to grumble because he often takes three putts is, on the face of it, rather stupid.

After what Vardon has written, I am not going to be guilty of suggesting anything that might be considered as an attempt to teach, but I will content myself with pointing out certain things which are worth considering. First, I will briefly review what others have written, and I will start with the opinions of my friend Vardon.

I cannot resist the temptation of suggesting that, when he next writes a chapter on this particular department of the game, he should not entitle it ' Simple Putting.' His doing so suggests the story about one of the other big men who, on a certain occasion, was suffering from a severe attack of socketing his mashie shots; at the end of the round a certain nobleman came up and cheerfully suggested that what he should do was to read '------on how to play the mashie.' Vardon seems to have a fixed idea that there is a method allotted to each of us by Nature. When we adopt it, unconsciously or not, we putt well, and when we deviate from it, if ever so little, we putt badly: that is his secret of putting.

Now I do not think that is very sound. One cannot say that it is wrong, because it is so indefinite, but I think the idea is erroneous, inasmuch as it insists on the vital importance of the stance. I believe a really good putter - Willie Park, for instance, and there is none better - could putt with his feet in any position, so long as you did not twist his body until he could not get a good sight of the line, or interfere with the freedom of his arms. Another, and a very fine putter be it noted, informs us that the secret of putting is to strike the ball as much on the bottom as possible, in order to impart drag. He tells us not to follow through, and to try and coax the ball into the hole.

Another authority tells us the real way to putt is to strike the ball on the top to give it running spin, and we are to be sure and follow through.

Others again advocate hitting the ball off the nose of the putter; some swear the heel is the best; and some actually suggest the centre of the putter as the correct place. There are then plenty of methods to try, and plenty of good putters who have adopted one or other of them.

The value of undercutting the ball or of imparting top spin to it depends, in my opinion, entirely on the condition of the green and the texture of the grass.

One idea I do think wrong, and that is for the man who drags his putt to aim at coaxing the ball into the hole; his only chance is to putt boldly for the back of the hole. It is the man who putts with top spin who should be afraid of getting past.

My ordinary way of putting is to hit the ball cleanly and to follow through. I always take a line as close to the ball as possible, and I putt almost entirely with the right hand. My stance is formed with the ball exactly opposite my left heel, and I stand fairly upright. If the green is very fast and slippery I take a putting-cleek. This helps to check the ball, and it also gives one a chance of hitting firmly without fear of running past the hole.

For the long putts, which you wish to get dead, there is no help any one can give. The only advice is that you must practise. Always try to acquire the habit of quickly observing the condition of the green, and then nothing but practice will teach you the 'touch' that is necessary for you to get the ball dead. There is no secret way of hitting the ball; some days you will do it, and some days you will not; but the more you practise, the more familiar with the stroke you will become, and the more often will you discover the correct strength.

And for the short putts. Pay attention to what is described as a good style - that is to say, note carefully all the advice about 'keeping the body still,' 'taking the line,' 'see that the putter is taken back smoothly and that it is brought back truly on the line to the hole ' - for it is obvious that a good style is better than a bad one. This is all that can be insisted upon; after that it is simply a question of whether you are able to hit the ball as you intend. There are plenty of people who think that a good style means success - that is pure nonsense.

PUTTING: STANCE AND GRIP.

[To face p. 208.

PUTTING: HOLING OUT.

[To face p. 209.

It is no good disguising the fact that there are hundreds, nay, thousands, of people who know all about style and its value, but who cannot hole a putt of four feet at a critical moment to save their lives. What happens is that their style goes all to pieces. I have very little patience with the elaborate system of pretence one meets on the putting-green: it would be far better to tell the truth. You watch the four-foot putt stop on the lip of the hole, and then you have to listen to an exclamation that it is 'hard luck,' that something or other stopped it on its way, and many other excuses - when all the time you could see quite plainly that the ball was not hit hard enough. Or, again, when the eight to ten foot putt goes flying past the hole, and you are informed that the striker 'thought the green much slower,' you know well enough that at the last moment, for some unaccountable reason, he hit the ball harder than he intended - you have done all this yourself.

Perhaps the most glaring example of mendacity occurs when the eighteen-inch to two-footer is missed, and you are told that the mistake was due to pure carelessness, or not taking sufficient pains, when nothing else was responsible but a sudden surge of mental fright in the shape of a small voice reminding the player that he had missed many such a putt before.

In putting, what I want to discover is how to make sure of hitting the ball as you know it should be hit on all occasions, or, in other words, how to stop those sudden attacks of flinching that paralyse the very best of styles, and upset the very best of players.