Now, it may turn out that he finds that in both instances he is doing the right and not the wrong thing; if that is so, he is very lucky, and has avoided one considerable difficulty by the light of nature. But it is much more probable that his wrist is turned rather outwards than inwards, and that the nose of his club is pointed rather to heaven than earth. One of these mistakes depends on the other, and both proceed from a very pardonable misconception of the player's duty. He properly begins the proceedings by having the club face turned in the direction in which he proposes to drive, with the centre of the face opposite the ball, and it is quite natural to imagine that this attitude of the club head towards the ball should be maintained throughout the swing. Therefore with much pains and labour he takes the club back, the face being still religiously turned in the direction of the ball's proposed flight. Now this idea is, as has been said, very natural; it may even be praiseworthy; but it has one serious defect in that it is shown by experience to be hopelessly, fatally wrong. The mind must at the outset be disabused of the idea that the club is to keep its face turned faithfully towards the ball; on the contrary, the up swing is to be a process of turning the face gradually away from the ball, and the down swing a process of turning it gradually towards it again. And since the club face is moved by means of the hands and wrists, it follows that these two have also to turn away from the ball in the upward swing.

This appears a positively unnatural doctrine, but it is not really so outrageous as it sounds. I once tried to explain it in a small elementary treatise by reference to a one-handed stroke, and I venture to think that this is as illuminating a method as any other. Let the player take his club in his left hand, and having fixed on the daisy or dandelion that is to be his victim, imagine himself to be playing a backhand shot at it as he would at lawn-tennis. Since nearly every one has played lawn-tennis or some other game involving a racket, this will be a natural movement, and he will go through it more or less instinctively. Let him go through the performance quite slowly and keep a watchful eye on his hand and wrist and on the head of the club, to see what they are doing. He will see that the club head does not for more than a very few inches of its progress remain facing in the direction in which he proposes to hit. No, it turns away from the line of flight and inwards, towards the player's body, while the hand and wrist are similarly turning over and inwards. Continue the movement a little further, and the face of the club is almost looking up to heaven. Continue it a little further still till the club has reached a horizontal position over the player's neck: the nose of the club will be found pointing straight down to the ground and the wrist will be bent inwards right under the shaft of the club; the two latter phenomena, as I said before, being essential to a true swing. However, to take the club right round the neck with one hand is hard work, and is not, moreover, really necessary. It is quite sufficient, with this back-hand shot, to take it back quite a short distance, because the essential thing is to get the club to start its career correctly; once comfortably started it will not be likely to err very grievously.

ONE-HANDED EXERCISE.

[To face p. 34.

I have a firm belief in this short back-hand swing with the left hand as a method of starting the club back properly, and it should be practised and persevered with for a little while, till the player feels quite comfortable with it. Then the strong right hand, which has no doubt been itching to plunge into the fray, may be allowed to join the left in holding the club. The immediate result will probably be a thorough dislocation of the swing, for the right hand does not like being ordered about by the left, and is apt to rebel at first against that turning-over movement of the club. So, although it will ultimately be allowed to hold tight and do plenty of work, the right hand had better at first hold rather loosely and be thoroughly subordinated to the left. Although he has now got two hands, the player should still as far as possible imagine himself with only one, and drone away to himself ' a back-hand stroke with the left hand.' The two warring hands will gradually make friends and work together more or less harmoniously.

When he has in some degree mastered this elementary movement, the player should try by degrees to make it gradually a bigger and bolder one, taking the club back further and more freely, and with the arms not too closely tucked in to his body. As soon as he does this he will very clearly feel the necessity for his body and legs to join in the fun, since, if they do not, there inevitably comes a hitch when no further backward movement of the club is possible. The great thing to remember about the body and legs is that they must always know their place, which is a subsidiary one; they must never start a movement on their own account, but must only move at the moment when the arms and wrists, having taken the lead, can get no further without them. His own sensations will tell the player when that moment has come, and he is not to anticipate it.

Moreover, when the body is allowed to move, its owner must be very careful only to let it move in one particular way. He must not move it from left to right with a hazy, if magnificent, idea of gathering all his weight together on the right foot for a plunge at the ball. That is called swaying, and is one of the seven deadly sins. Nor must he move it upwards like the hero in a novel who, at some terrific moment, 'draws himself up to his full height,' as a preliminary towards making a? supreme effort.' The head must be kept absolutely and rigidly still, and there must be none of this upward jump. The body must move only round its own axis. Behind the player's waistcoat buttons runs an imaginary line, and round that line, as an axis, the body should turn freely, but the axis itself must not budge, and the best way to keep the axis steady is to keep the head absolutely and ferociously still.