So much for the grip, and now as to the club, which may be made of wood, aluminium, or iron. Clubs of wood and aluminium I propose to class together, an action blasphemous and indecent in the eyes of those who wield the old wooden putter. Certainly a putter properly so called is the more graceful and fascinating of the two, and its aluminium rival may lack something of its sweetness of hitting, but the method of using the two clubs is largely the same, and so I will venture to stick to my guns. Iron putters vary amongst themselves to an enormous extent. They have straight necks and crooked necks, lofted faces and absolutely straight faces, flat lies and upright lies; they can be light or they can be heavy. Still they are all iron putters, and the main question to be decided is between wood or aluminium on the one hand and iron on the other. If a man at the beginning of his golfing career feel a strong yearning towards any particular kind of putter, it would be flying in the face of Providence to balk him of his desire. If, however, as is quite likely, he starts with a mind void of prejudice, then let a club of aluminium be thrust into his hand; aluminium, and not wood, firstly on the economic ground that it is more indestructible, and, secondly, because the slight degree of loft on the face makes it rather easier for the ordinary person to control. I say this because an aluminium putter is more likely to make him acquire a smooth and even manner of hitting the ball. A ball may be tapped or scraped with an iron club with a just sufficient measure of temporary success to harden the player in his bad and early ways, and make future reformation a matter of the gravest difficulty, but an aluminium club instantly and effectually resents any such flagrant misuse, and the ball that is scraped or tapped keeps out of the hole so resolutely that the owner is in self-defence compelled to wield the club in a more becoming fashion. I may, further, adduce the remark of one of the very best of cleek putters, that had he to begin life over again, he would begin with an aluminium putter, because it makes putting easier. Aluminium putters are turned out by the thousand according to one or two standard patterns. They are so like each other that no advice need be given in the choosing of one, save only that the one should be chosen which is the best balance. As to what is well or ill balanced there can be no better guide than the player's own feelings, confirmed perhaps by those of his professional adviser. If, however, he chooses an iron putter, he will have an infinitely wider range of choice, so wide indeed that but two general pieces of advice can be given him. The club should have a certain amount of loft on the face, for the absolutely straight-faced iron putter is by common consent an atrocity, and it should not be too heavy. Possibly he may secure, by means honest or dishonest, one of those old, light, thin-bladed, lofted putting-cleeks, which though rare are still to be found in the bags of a few fine putters, such, for instance, as Mr. Laidlay; if so, let him treasure it tenderly. They are beautiful clubs that often began their careers as driving-cleeks in almost prehistoric times, to be converted in their old age into putters, and are especially good upon fast or rough greens. Indeed, there is this to say against the aluminium putter, that on greens that are very keen or very rough and lumpy, it demands a degree of confidence, firmness, and delicacy almost superhuman, so that an iron club may well be held in reserve.

Meantime, however, the nature of the green does not enter into the question, and so taking his club in hand the learner can come at last to the swinging of it. And as to this, the first great piece of advice is that putting is to be done with the wrists. It is dogmatic advice, and advice with which every one does not agree, since there are fine putters who declare that as regards short putts the all-important thing is to allow no play to the wrists. Nevertheless, observation shows that the majority of good putters undoubtedly do putt with a free wrist, and perhaps I may add, for the sake of antithesis as much as argument, that the majority of execrably bad ones putt with a stiff wrist.

Moreover, although I suspect that it is almost wiser to be dogmatic than to appeal to argument, one good reason for this advice may be advanced. The man who putts purely from the wrists can hit the ball and yet keep his arms practically still, but the stiff-wristed putter must very decidedly move his arms, and in consequence is much the more likely of the two, as a moment's experiment will show, to move his body. As to this last crime there can be no two opinions as to its criminality. The body must not of course be held as still as a ramrod, since to be cramped in regard to any stroke is absolutely fatal, but it is impossible to assert with too passionate an emphasis that the player must not try to assist the club on its path by sympathetically moving his body forward in unison with it. The result will inevitably be exactly opposite to that intended. So let it be set down once and for all that the body is to be kept still, and that the stroke is to be of the wrists and the wrists only.

The matter, unfortunately, does not end here, because to swing a putter backwards and forwards with the wrists in a reasonably smooth manner is not so easy as it sounds. The learner will find, on the contrary, that the movement of the club is apt to be jerky, ragged, and uneven. Let him persevere, however, swinging the club gently to and fro somewhat after the manner of a pendulum, and the motion will soon become smoother and more satisfactory. He must also remember that, in the words of a distinguished writer, 'the principal secret of good putting ... is that the club should travel as long as possible on the line - or a production of it - on which the ball is to travel,' and that his club must resemble a pendulum not only in the smoothness of its motion, but also in the fact of travelling over and over again the same straight path. For the attaining of this end, the editor of this volume once gave some excellent advice that I may here repeat, namely that ' the problem can be solved more readily in a drawing-room, without a ball - by seeing how the putter head may be best induced to move along a straight line of the carpet pattern - than on the putting green.' In trying this indoor experiment the student will probably discover incidentally that the direction in which he swings his club will be materially affected by alterations in the position of his feet, and by wriggling his feet backwards and forwards he will very likely attain to the position which suits him best. He will also discover that the behaviour of the club will vary according as his right or left wrist plays the predominant part in the swinging of it.