There is a general - I might say universal - tendency among golfers to exaggerate the importance of style. From the best to the worst, when off their driving, they begin at once to alter something, assuming that the cause is to be found in a wrong stance, grip, or what not. And yet the experienced know well enough that their driving will never come back so long as they pursue this line of research. Style, in other words, is not nearly of so much importance as accurate hitting. Take a batch of first-class players, and we find that they all drive practically about the same distance, notwithstanding infinite variety in their way of doing so, and even greater differences in physique. It is usual to attribute the powerful driving of small men to the excellence of their style; if this be the cause of it, how does it happen that there are big men twice as strong, and with as easy swings as their little rivals, who as often play the odds after the tee shot as not? A batch of second-class players drives, on an average, some ten yards shorter than those who can give them a shade of odds (I do not include those who are second-class because they are beginners, or incurably careless). The same slight superiority exists in the approaching of first over second-class players; and I am inclined to believe that this is also true in regard to putting, although it is the fashion to credit many bad drivers with skill in this department. Where are those fine putters on the ladies' green? How is it, when there are prizes there for men, it is some golfer known to fame who usually wins? No. Strength and style are of minor importance compared with accuracy. I do not mean that the first is of no value at all; but to ordinary physiques of five feet six inches up to gianthood it gives no advantage, except from bunkers and bad lies. Even from these a Hercules is not necessarily the best. Precision is the main thing. When a man's eye is in he may address the ball in a dozen different ways with the same result; when it is out, no shifting of position will mend matters. First-class play is compatible with ugly style. A third-rate biceps may drive a long ball; but a second-class combination of hand and eye-will prevent a man being both far and sure. To be a steady player, a man who finds he cannot hit a screamer every time must either play more easily or more coarsely, the latter preferable. Men learn their position instinctively. Watch an eminent golfer in the prime of youth, a prudent liver, or not old enough to be affected by imprudence, driving against, perhaps, a stronger man, who either never did aim exactly, or whose more delicate machinery is a little shaken by the wear and tear of life. How coarse and sclaffy the latter's shots are by comparison ! One drives like a new hansom, the other rattles like an ill-built or old four-wheeler.

As we are accustomed to see dissimilar swings producing about the same result, so, on the other hand, cases of the exact converse are not uncommon - cases of two men with apparently the same style, one a powerful driver, the other incapable of sending the ball a hundred yards. Here comes a player who gets his hands under the club, swings it over his head, stands with the ball close to him, and yet sends it flying. Behind is another, his exact counterpart, except in the matter of results. Why is this? Why is the one a good player, the other not? If we take up a club of the first man, it is found to be very upright. Why he adopted this lie, whether by accident or on purpose, matters not. There it is, and he plays well, because his style is a natural product of a single-minded concentration on hitting clean. The duffer got his swing in another way, namely, by mimicry. The copy is fairly good, but not quite exact. The hands are Esau's, but not the club, which, being flat, compels him to add some movements not indulged in by his master. He has to bend down to adjust its head behind the ball, to rise during the swing, and subside again at hitting-time. Not that this omission in the copy of externals matters much. His play would be no better with his ideal's club, because they differ utterly in their thoughts. The one thinks of hitting, the other about his manner of threatening to do so. Here is another good driver coming up to the hole where we critics are standing - another with an ugly style, as anything with peculiarities is called. He stands with his feet far apart - stands 'open' - and swings round his biceps, not his neck. Why is he driving well, and his partner and reflection so badly? Again a flaw in the copy gives a hint as to the origin of the leader's peculiarities. He has his hands very much under the club and at the same time exceptionally near the ground, whilst the other is evidently proud of his ' proper' grip. The intelligent onlooker (if i may be allowed so to speak of myself) retires a little off the course to drive imaginary balls, to discover that, given this particular grip, the rest follows as a natural consequence, and to speculate that probably the leader accidentally took this grip when he began to play, and thought no more about it.

The most natural manner in which to address a ball is, of course, to stand with legs straight and firm, and with no more stoop of the body than is absolutely necessary to enable the player to see it with straight eyes. But golfers, good ones, in the laudable endeavour to stand well away from the ball, acquire in great numbers the habit of stooping-forward more than is necessary. These instinctively apply a corrective. For instance, some bend their knees. There are extremists who even stoop so far forward, and have cancelled the effect of doing so to such an extent by bending their knees, that they would fit a chair if placed behind them when driving. Some of the stupid imitators of these think the secret lies in the stooping, some in the knee-bending, with bad golf as a result in either case. Other good players, who stoop over their work, keep their bodies steady and their grip of the ground firm by placing the left foot nearer the line of fire than the right. They stand as in Fig. 3 exaggerated. Some of the stability given in the line of fire by keeping the feet apart is thus used to prevent falling in. One of the best - if not the best - players in the world at the present moment, in this way cancels the bad effects of his stooping forward to his work, and, as might he expected, at the sacrifice of a little of the straightness which a 'square' stand gives. At this moment his miserable imitators swarm on every golf green in the Lothians. They all copy his peculiar stance, some have grasped some other point; not one has improved his game. They have a little of Pygmalion's art; not one of them can animate their work. The ass of fable dressed like a lion they address like one. When the beast brayed he was betrayed; so it is when they swing.