He had conceived the idea that a drive was only an exaggerated put, and he made up his mind that he would proceed to exaggerate his put by degrees until he had reached the limit of his drive, and had found that no further swinging back would give him extra distance. He found that he got no farther with his drive when he carried his club right round to what is known as the full swing, than he did when his club head came from about the same height as his lawn-tennis racket did in playing the game which he knew so well.

When he had ascertained this he resolutely refused to increase the length of his swing. His club mates laughed at him and told him that it was not golf, that he was playing cricket, and many other pleasant little things like this. It had no effect whatever on him, for he knew that he was producing the stroke, in so far as he played it, exactly according to the best-known methods of the leading golfers of the world. He was content, in this respect, to follow known and accepted methods, but he would not in any way adopt the prevalent idea of a long swing.

Of course, he was laughed at and told that it was extremely bad form, but before long he "had the scalps" of his detractors. Then they were unable to say much about his golf, and he had very much the best of the argument when within a remarkably short space of time he won the championship of his Province. He proved quite conclusively to his own satisfaction, and to the great chagrin of many of the other players, the truth of Vardon's statement, "The shorter the swing the greater the accuracy."

There can be very little doubt that for those who take to golf late in life, especially if they have not played other games, the orthodox swing is a trap. A very great number of them get the swing, but not the ball. Many of them are, I am afraid, under the impression that the swing is of more importance than getting the ball away. Needless to say, they do not improve very much.

For those who take to golf late in life, I am sure that the great principle which makes for length and direction in any ball game that is, or ever was played, namely, keep in the line of your shot as long as you can both before and after impact, will be found as sound to-day as it always has been. Probably it will be found, and before very long too, that what is true for the late beginner is equally true for the greatest experts. As a matter of fact, some of our leading professionals are beginning to realise this already, particularly with regard to their iron play.

There are several very important points in connection with the short swing - points which, I believe, are of very great advantage to the golfer when once he has thoroughly grasped them. It is obvious that the shorter the swing is, the less necessity will there be for disturbing the position of one's feet. This naturally means that there is less likelihood of any undue swaying. Secondly, the shorter swing is naturally much more upright than the orthodox swing, and it comes more natural to a player to hit downwards at his ball when using it.

The first point which we have made is that the shorter swing produces less disturbance of the feet, because it is generally more upright than a corresponding length of the orthodox swing. In the flat swing there is less need to move the feet than there is in the upright swing. It is in the latter that one feels soonest the necessity for lifting the heel of the left foot, but in the short swing there is not the same necessity for balancing and pivoting on the toes as there is in the orthodox drive, for the swing back is not extended enough to require it. It should be apparent then that with the short swing much of the complexity of the golf drive is taken away.

I must make this a little clearer: practically all the golf books tell us that the left heel must come away from the earth when the arms seem to draw it. Anyone who follows this out in practice will find that it is impossible to preserve the rhythm of his swing. As a matter of practical golf the left heel must come away from the earth as soon as the head of the club leaves the ball. The motions are practically simultaneous. This matter of the management of the feet is probably the greatest contributing cause to the complexity of the golf drive, and the many erroneous descriptions of it which are given by our leading players. The principal reason for this is that it is the latitude given to the body by this shifting of the heels which accounts for the wrong transference of the weight to the right foot, and the equally wrong lurching on the left foot.

One would not, of course, for a moment advocate that the golfer's heels should be immovable, although James Braid does maintain, quite wrongly, I think, that the position of the feet at the moment of impact should be exactly the same as at the moment of address - that is, that the heels should be firmly planted on the ground. Although he says this, the instantaneous photographs of him in the act of driving show conclusively that he does not carry his theory into practice. Many of our greatest golfers are beginning now to see that the firmer the foundation the more fixed and immovable the base, the steadier must be the superstructure - to wit, the chest and shoulders - and therefore the more constant will be the centre, if I may use the word in a general sense, of the swing.

The importance of preserving this "centre" cannot be overestimated, for golf is a game which demands a wonderful degree of mechanical accuracy, and it is only by observing the best mechanical principles that the best results can be obtained.

In the ordinary drive of the ordinary golfer there is usually an excessive amount of foot and ankle work, and, generally speaking, this foot and ankle work is not carried out in the best possible manner. There is, as a matter of fact, imported into the drive far too great an opportunity for the player to move his weight about. He takes full advantage of this, and the usual result is that he transfers his weight, when driving, to his right leg, which, as we shall see later on, is a very bad fault for the golfer to acquire. In the shorter swing there is much less temptation for the golfer to make the errors which are usually attendant on faulty footwork.

The other point of importance which I have mentioned in connection with the short swing, is that it comes much more naturally to the player to hit downwards. Probably not one golfer in a hundred realises that the vast majority of his strokes are made in a manner wholly opposed to the best science of golf. They are, generally speaking, hit upwards, whereas the most perfect golf drive should be hit downwards, and this statement is, in perhaps a less degree, true of nearly all golf strokes which are not played on the green.

The best way to get any ordinary ball into the air is to hit it upwards, but this general rule does not apply to the golf ball, for it is always stationary and is generally lying on turf. However, few players will trust the loft of the club to perform its natural function. They seem to forget that each club has been made with a loft of such a nature that, given the ball is struck fairly and properly, the loft may be relied on to do its share of the work. Consequently, as they will not trust the club to get the ball up, they hit upwards, and so, to a very great extent, minimise the amount of back-spin which might come from the loft, were the club travelling in a horizontal line at the moment of impact.

It is very much harder, however, to hit upwards with a short swing, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that there is a much greater tendency to hit the ball before the club head has got to the lowest point in its swing. We must emphasise this point, for it is of great importance, as back-spin is of the essence of the modern game, and particularly of the modern drive. If, therefore, we can show that the short swing tends more naturally to produce back-spin than does the full St. Andrews swing, and at the same time to give greater accuracy as regards direction, it need hardly be stated that it will not be long before we have the scientific players giving the stroke the place to which it is undoubtedly entitled in the game of golf.