PLATE III.

HARRY VARDON At the top of his swing, showing his weight mainly on the left leg. This characteristic is very marked in Vardon's play.

It is obvious that in many cases the first impact will be on one of these pimples, and also in many cases certainly not in a line dead down the centre of that bramble and in a line coinciding with the intended line of run of the ball. When the impact takes place in this manner it is obvious that, according to the simplest laws of mechanics, the put must be started wrongly. It is also obvious that if there is this tendency to go crookedly off the face of the club the ball will have more opportunity of getting out of the track, which it makes for itself in the turf, if it is lifted in any degree from the turf by a lofted club.

It is apparent that a golf ball on a putting green sinks into the turf. It is equally apparent that it will, on its way to the hole, make for itself a track or furrow of approximately the same depth as the depression in which it was resting when stationary. That furrow, to a very great extent, holds the ball to its course and minimises very much the faulty marking of a great many of the golf balls of to-day, so that it will be seen that the object of the player should be not in any way whatever to lift his ball from the green in the put, which is the invariable and inevitable tendency of attempting to put with drag by means of a lofted club. It is an extremely common error to suppose that a put played with drag hugs the green more than one played in the ordinary way, or with top. As a matter of incontrovertible fact, no put hugs the green more than a topped put. It would be easy enough to demonstrate this were it necessary to do so, but it is a matter which comes in more in the dynamics of golf, and possibly I shall have the space to treat of it further there. We may, for our immediate purpose, content ourselves with the fact that James Braid has abandoned putting with drag, and now rolls his ball up to the hole with, if anything, a little top, although, be it clearly understood, there is no apparent intention on his part to obtain this top, nor does he in Advanced Golf advocate that any attempt should be made to obtain top; but there can be no doubt whatever that the manner in which he plays his put tends to impart a certain amount of top to the ball, and this, of course, causes it to run very freely.

Now with regard to putting drag on a long put, it should be obvious to any one that, considering the roughness of the green, the extreme roughness of the ball and its comparatively light weight in proportion to its size, it would be impossible to make that ball retain any considerable measure of back-spin over any appreciable distance of the green. The idea is so repugnant to common sense and practical golf that it has always been a matter of astonishment to me to think that it could have prevailed so much as it has. However, there can be no doubt that putting under this utterly wrong impression has done a very great amount of harm to the game of players who might otherwise have been many strokes better. Let our golfer understand that there is one way, and one way only, in practical golf to put the ball, and that is to roll it up to the hole.

There is generally an exception to prove the rule, and if I can find an exception to this rule, it must be when one is trying to bolt short puts. Practically every one has experienced the difficulty of holing short puts, especially when the green is extremely keen. It is here that the delicacy of the stroke allows the ball and the inequalities thereof and any obstructions on the turf to exercise their fullest power to deflect the ball from the line to the hole. James Braid, in these circumstances, advises bolting one's puts. Needless to say, he explains that one should put dead for the middle of the hole, and by bolting, of course, is meant that one should put firmly so as to give the ball sufficient strength of run to overcome its inequalities or those of the tuff.

This, unquestionably, is good advice; but if one puts at the hole in this manner and does not get it cleanly enough to sink into the tin at once, the ball with top will run round the edge of the tin and remain on the green. This is the only case in golf that I can call to mind where there is any use in putting drag on a put, and the reason for this is that the distance from the ball to the hole and the nature of the green is such that the ball is able to retain a very considerable portion of its backward spin, and upon contact with the rim of the hole, instead of having a forward run on it which enables it to hold up and so get away from the hole, the back-spin gets a grip on the edge of the hole and the ball falls in.

So far as I can remember, this is absolutely the only case in which drag of any sort may be considered useful in a put. When I say drag of any sort I am not, of course, referring to cutting round a put, or negotiating a stymie with back-spin, for neither of these strokes comes within the scope of my remark.

Having arrived at a decision as to the best method of sending the ball on its journey to the hole, we have now to consider a point of supreme importance in golf, and one which is not sufficiently insisted upon by instructors. This is, that at the moment of impact the face of the putter shall form a true right angle with the line of run to the hole. That is the fundamental point in connection with putting; but it is of almost equal importance that the right angle shall be preserved for as long a time as possible in the swing back, and also in the follow-through - in other words, the head of the putter should be in the line of run to the hole as long as possible both before and after the stroke. With this extremely simple rule, and it will be apparent that this can be just as well learned in an armchair as anywhere else, almost anyone could put well.