For some mysterious reason it appears that, whatever may be done in theory, in practice the work cannot be equally apportioned between the two wrists. If their owner craves advice as to which should do the greater share, he confronts the adviser with a most difficult problem. The answer that most people would give is, I fancy, that the right hand should be the predominant hand, but very excellent players can be quoted who both by precept and example uphold the opposite theory. There is Mr. John Low, for instance, than whom no one comes nearer to his own ideal of ' hitting the ball with freedom, grace and accuracy in the middle of the club.' Mr. Low declares that he has come ' very strongly to the opinion that the left should be the master.' I have also heard Mr. Herbert Fowler - and he is a very good putter and a gentleman of very decided opinions - express his belief that a vast deal of the bad putting in the world comes from the club not being taken back sufficiently with the left hand. Mr. Low suggests that a good deal depends on whether a man uses a club of wood or iron, and that in putting with cleeks, more especially those of the Park or swan-necked type, the right hand takes a relatively more important part. He himself of course uses the putter of wood, but Mr. Fowler uses a cleek with a bent neck.

Some illustrious examples may be quoted on the right-handed side of the question. Mr. Sidney Fry and Sherlock are two that occur to me, and both of these may be set down primarily as cleek putters, although I have seen them both putt admirably with aluminium clubs, and that without any apparent change of method. Mr. Travis again is very decidedly a right-hand putter, and yet there is certainly no lack of freedom, grace, and accuracy about his really beautiful stroke. The question clearly cannot admit of a positive answer, but personally, taking an ordinary individual about to start on his golfing life with a perfectly clean sheet, I should advise him to give the right-hand method a good trial as being, on the whole, the easier to acquire and the more faithful servant.

Most golfers have probably at one time or another experimented in putting with what I may call a croquet-like stroke; not by swinging the club between their legs as with the now forbidden mallet, but by holding their hands some considerable distance apart. A trial of this method gives the sensation of the right hand doing most of the work, and more especially pushing the club well through after the ball, so that a follow-through of almost exaggerated magnificence is obtained. I would not advocate holding the hands far apart, but I quote that method as giving, as it were, a clue to the stroke, which for the average person will be found a very sound one. Mr. Fry, although he holds his hands quite reasonably close together, has that right-hand push and follow-through very well marked, and may be given as a good instance of this method.

There is this to be said against this pronouncedly right-hand style, that it may lead to the player being unduly cramped. It is a canon of good putting that the club should be taken back with freedom and well away from the ball, and a moment's experimenting will show that the club can be taken further back and with more complete freedom if the work be done with the left wrist. Still, the right wrist, if it be fairly supple, should do the work quite freely enough for practical purposes, and any possible disadvantage on this score is, I think, more than compensated for by that fine push through of the club straight on the line.

As noted above, there is something like a consensus of opinion that the club should be taken a good long way back from the ball. It is a noticeable feature in the style of nearly all the best putters, particularly resplendent examples being Mr. Low, Mr. Charles Hutchings and Massey, and it must necessarily make for the avoidance of the jerk or snatch, which is fatal to every golfing stroke. Braid, who, being by nature but an indifferent putter, has yet by taking thought made himself a very good one, takes the club back as far as any one and with a notable, almost laboured, slowness. This slowness is probably worthy of study and imitation as tending to a smooth movement of the club, but there is one danger that lurks in it. The taking of the club back very slowly and very far produces sometimes a horrible sensation hard to describe in words, but easily recognisable in practice; a kind of hitch in the stroke, wherein the player feels that he cannot get his club back to the ball unless he moves his body forward. He does move his body forward, his hands come through in front of the club head, and the ball is, as a rule, pushed out to the right off the heel of the club. I know no definite cure for this disease except to stand resolutely still and avoid any undue exaggeration of the solemnity of the back swing.

The use of the word swing again introduces a point. There are those who putt very well with something of a sharp tapping stroke, but there are a great many more who putt very ill in this style, and even of the good ones it may be said that 'when they are bad they are horrid.' To those who use a club of wood or aluminium a swinging movement is essential, and the man who putts with a cleek will probably do much better if he visualises his stroke as a swing rather than a hit. For one thing he is more likely to let the club go well through, and a follow-through is hardly less important on the green than on the tee. It must not be too laboured or self-conscious a performance, and assuredly no striving after it must tempt the body to move forward. If a man be standing still and striking the ball a nice, free blow, the follow-through should come naturally; and if it does not come he had better examine critically his back swing, and try to infuse into it something more of smoothness and rhythm.