Here I permit myself to digress, because the ludicrously wrong ideas about ' Vardon's Push-shot' held by many persons aptly illustrate an important point in this chapter, videlicet that the general acceptance of inaccurate terminology handicaps educationalists terribly in the discharge of their duties. This particular stroke has no share in the nature of a Push, and it was used for the treatment of bad-lying balls by many players before Vardon appeared to impress the imagination of the golfing world. When he lays a ball dead with his cleek from a distance slightly less than two hundred yards, incidentally cutting a fid of turf from the ground just in front of where his ball lay, and stands there poised in an attitude of easy grace, his club checked maybe a yard in front of him, he pulled rather than pushed the cleek head down on to the ball. It was the left triceps, not the right biceps, which did the trick, and at the moment of impact his hands were in front of the ball rather than behind it. He has himself told us that he keeps his hands in advance of the ball, and the camera shows that he speaks truth. Now nobody can push an object forward unless he gets behind it. But some of Vardon's would-be imitators make a sad mess of their long iron-shots, because they have an idea that they must in some way 'push' the reluctant ball towards the hole. They will very probably find illumination in the statement that the club head must be pulled on to the ball with the left arm, the underhand throw of the right coming in at the last moment to supplement, but not to supersede, the pace imparted to it by the left. This seems to me to be merely another way of stating Vardon's printed explanation of his method.

To return for a moment to the 'Fundamental Shot.' I claim for it as a medium of education, that as compared with the Full Drive, which most commonly forms the subject of the earliest lessons given to a beginner, it is easy to explain and easy to demonstrate; that a persistent and prolonged attempt to master it makes a man detect unity in the manner of making all strokes from short approach to full drive; that the absence of violent exertion prevents the intrusion of errors in hitting, which are difficult of detection by teacher or pupil; that it leads to a grasp of the essentials of method, which will be most valuable to the young player when he has developed a recognisable and appraisable 'game,' but finds himself temporarily off it: he can put himself on the road to recovery by beginning again at the beginning, and he has a definite beginning to begin with. Finally, it is universal; everybody who is anybody at golf plays the half-shot with an iron club in practically the same way, and the half-shot differs only in degree from longer and more forceful shots. I leave it for others to tell how the more complex strokes from Drive to Putt should be accomplished. My sincere hope is that those who have given careful attention to the instruction in the elements hereinbefore set out, will in consequence be able to derive the fuller benefit when they get into the Sixth Form, and are up to Mr. Darwin, James Sherlock, and last - but who in all courtesy should have been named first - Mrs. Ross, better known to golfing fame as Miss May Hezlet.