We have already dealt with the fallacy of the sweep. It is a curious thing that although the leading golfers and authors pin their faith to the sweep as being the correct explanation of the drive in golf, yet nearly all of them, when it comes to a question of the stroke with the iron clubs, say that it is a hit. Now the stroke with the iron clubs is identical with the stroke with the wooden clubs, with the exception, of course, in many cases, that it has not gone back so far; but the action of the wrists is, or should be, the same. The club head travels, stroke for stroke, relatively in exactly the same arc; the beginning of the stroke and finish of the stroke is the same, and all the other laws, mutatis mutandis, apply. It would, indeed, be hardly too much to say that there is at golf only one stroke, and that every other stroke is a portion of that stroke, that stroke being, of course, the drive. If we take the drive as the supreme stroke in golf, and examine the nature of the stroke, we shall find that in that stroke is included practically every stroke in the game. That being so, it seems to me extremely hard to differentiate between a cleek shot and a drive - in fact, in so far as regards the production of the shot it is impossible to differentiate between them. If the one is a hit, the other is, and as a matter of fact, every stroke in golf, with the possible exception of the put, is a hit.

While we are speaking of hits and fallacies, it will not be out of place to devote a little attention to a point of extreme importance, and at the same time one which is very much neglected in most books dealing with the game. It is the ambition of many a golfer to get what he imagines to be "the true St. Andrews swing." They try this in numberless cases, where, from the stiffness of their joints and their build generally, it is impossible in the nature of things that they can obtain a very full swing. It is bad enough in these cases, for I speak now of people who have taken to the game when their frames have become so set that it is practically an impossibility for them to obtain anything in the nature of a full swing, but the attempt to obtain a long swing is not, however, confined to those who have taken to the game late in life, although it is with them naturally a greater error than it is with those who started the game when their limbs were more supple and their frames more easily adapted to the stroke.

If I allow myself to take my natural swing, I can nearly always see the head of the club at the top of my swing, and at the finish it is hanging nearly as far over the right shoulder as it was at the top of the swing over the left shoulder. There can be no doubt that with a swing like this, when one can control it sufficiently, one gets a very long ball, and there is a very delightful feeling in getting a perfect drive with such a swing, but from the very nature of the stroke it stands to reason that it must be less accurate than a much shorter and less showy effort.

Harry Vardon, in The Complete Golfer, asks: "Why is it that they like to swing so much and waste so much power, unmindful of the fact that the shorter the swing the greater the accuracy?" There can be no doubt whatever that in the very full swing, such as I have described, there is a waste of power and a sacrifice of accuracy. The rule which is true of the put, "Keep the head of the club in the line to the hole as long as you can, both before and after impact," is, mutatis mutandis, just as applicable to the drive.

Vardon continues:

Many people are inclined to ask why, instead of playing a half shot with the cleek, the iron is not taken and a full stroke made with it, which is the way that a large proportion of good golfers would employ for reaching the green from the same distance. For some reason, which I cannot explain, there seems to be an enormous number of players who prefer a full shot with any club to a half shot with another, the result being the same or practically so.

This is a curious remark to come from a golfer of the ability of Harry Vardon. I should have thought that the reason is sufficiently obvious. In playing a full shot the ordinary golfer feels that he has simply to get the most that his club is capable of. He therefore has no necessity to exercise any conscious muscular restraint. He plays the shot and trusts the club for his regulation of distance, but on the other hand, in playing a half shot he knows that he must exercise a good deal of judgment in applying his strength. It seems to me that there can be very little doubt that this is the reason why most golfers prefer the full shot. However that may be, it is beyond doubt that the desire, as Vardon puts it, "to swing so much" is the root cause of a vast amount of very bad golf.

"The shorter the swing, the greater the accuracy." This statement is as true of one's wooden clubs as it is of the iron. It should be printed as a text and hung in every golf club-house in the world, for there can be very little doubt that if the value of this advice were thoroughly realised, it would make golf pleasanter and better for every one. The blind worship of the full swing has been carried to a lamentable extent, and golfers who devote any thought to their game are beginning to understand that beyond a reasonable swing back, the surplus is so much waste energy, and, which is more important still, simply imports into the stroke a very much greater risk of error.

Many years ago I had a very remarkable illustration of the value of the short swing. A club mate of mine who was an adept at most games, and a champion at lawn-tennis and billiards, took it into his head to play golf. He was in the habit of thinking for himself. Of course, directly he started to learn golf, every one wished to make him tie himself into the usual knots, but he refused to be influenced by other people's ideas. He was content to work out his own salvation. He had watched many of the unfortunate would-be golfers contorting themselves in their efforts to reproduce what they took to be "a true St. Andrews swing," but determined that he would not follow their example.