There is just one cheering fact with which the nervous golfer may legitimately comfort himself. It is not the torpid creature with the 'dead nerve,' as I have heard it called, who does best in a big match, but rather the highly-strung man who can master himself. It used to be said of one of the greatest advocates at the Bar when in the height of his fame, that the papers would crackle in his hand before a big case, as if he had been a timid junior with his first brief in a county court. The moment he was on his feet nothing more serene and masterly could be imagined. So it is, though in varying degrees, with eminent golfers. Braid has said that he likes to feel a little shaky before a big match, but his kind of shakiness is probably of a comparatively stable kind. Taylor is clearly wrought up, and is so terrible because of the iron grip that he keeps on himself. Those who knew Mr. Walter Travis well declared he was a nervous man. Yet when he conquered at Sandwich-and no one ever better deserved to win-there was something diabolic in his apparent calmness. He was Colonel Bogey incarnate.

I suppose the worst temperament for golf, as for any other game, is that which is called the artistic or poetic or imaginative: the worst, that is to say, unless it is most rigorously schooled. The imaginative player has a much greater difficulty than his more stolid brother in keeping strictly to the matter in hand. It is hard for him to make his mind as nearly as possible a perfect blank when he goes up to hit the ball. Well has it been said that 'Golf lends itself readily to the dreaming of scenes in which the dreamer is the hero.' No castles tower higher and more glittering in the air than golfing castles. Before a match or a medal round we play in imagination every single hole. We try to be modest and reasonable : we know that in fact we shall make a mistake or two ; and in our dream-cards we mean to introduce a few fives, even perhaps a six for the long hole against the wind, to break our beautiful line of fours and threes. But as we come to each hole we cannot quite bear it : the imaginary mistake gets put off and off, till at the end we have played better than Vardon ever did and gone round in 69 or so. This amusement is so childlike, so far removed from grim reality, that perhaps it does us no great harm. Once we settle down to a real, as opposed to a dream game, we think no more about it. The fatal thing is to play a dream round at the same time as we are playing a real one.

Suppose we are two or three up, we begin to look forward to the winning of the match, say, on the fourteenth green. We picture our opponent chivalrously congratulating us and saying that we have been altogether too good for him : our friends clapping us cordially on the back with a 'Well played, old chap': spectators looking at us with reverential interest. And just as our dream has reached this perfect consummation, bang goes our adversary's ball against the back of the tin! He has holed a horrible 'gobbling' putt from thirty yards away. Our comparatively short putt which was to have been for the hole is now only for the half, and we shall miss it. We come down to earth with a bump. Our dreams instead of being rosy and golden become black as night. We fancy those friends of ours saying, 'Poor old chap ! He was four up at one time and then actually let himself be beaten. He 's got no guts-he can't last.' And at once we set to work to justify those imaginary comments.

For this disease there can be no certain cure. We can only take and shake ourselves-metaphorically -and say, 'Don't be a self-conscious idiot.' And we can try our very hardest to concentrate our minds on each shot as it arises and to take our time. The man who, having had a winning lead, is in process of losing it, is easily recognisable. He walks with a rapid, flurried step : he puffs at his pipe as if his life depended on keeping it alight: he plays the shot as if his one object were to get it over. It is a horrid moment, but it will not be made better by hurrying. Now, if ever, is the time to walk slowly and study the putts from both ends and at the same time to play a reasonably bold game. When once a little of our lead has slipped we begin all too soon to think of a halved hole as our highest possible ambition. Of course if we halve enough holes we shall win the match, but to hope for nothing better than halves is not the way to set about getting them.

Here is the sort of thing we have nearly all done and suffered, and seen, too, in the case of other people if we ever watch matches. A. having been four or five up on B. is now only two up with four to go. At the fifteenth B. plays the odd and does not get on to the green : he is in the rough, or even in a bunker. 'Thank God,' thinks A. to himself (you can see him thinking it). 'He won't do better than five - I must be able to halve this one, I must be careful.'

And he plays a very gingerly shot which just reaches the edge of the green. B. promptly puts his niblick shot dead, A. takes three putts. He loses the hole, and it is tolerably certain he will lose the match. Could he have controlled himself and his thoughts, he would have played a bolder second and made sure of his four. Then in all probability B. would not have put that niblick shot dead or anything like it, for though we are sometimes overwhelmed by the irresistible brilliance of our enemy, it is a rare case. As a rule he plays just as well as we let him and no better.

We must never entirely disregard the art of 'playing to the score,' but I am sure we can think too much about it. When our adversary has played the two more it is futile to attempt a long and dangerous carry, but consciously and deliberately to ' play safe 'every time we have just a little the best of matters and think the enemy is in difficulties is not the way to win a match. For, first, he may recover, and, secondly, we are not always safe when we mean to be. The shot that is played with no object but to keep the ball in play is just the one we are apt to bungle most sadly. A distinguished golfer of an elder generation said to me the other day that modern players had lost the art of playing the spared shot that was to keep the ball out of trouble and do no more. Perhaps they have: at any rate most of them find it difficult. That particular golfer was once playing in a hurricane of wind at Hoylake. He kept the ball skimming close to the ground and out of harm's way with a straight-faced cleek having a short stiff shaft, while his adversary, attempting more orthodox strokes, was being blown all over the place. 'Mr. H., 'said his caddie, 'is not playing a proud game' - and the words have become almost proverbial. To be able to play that sort of golf is a valuable gift, but it is one to be acquired by practice. To attempt it suddenly in a match, when it is unfamiliar, is very dangerous. If it is unsuccessful it will demoralise the player and set the flame of hope burning very brightly in his enemy's breast.