Before leaving that part of the game in which sending the ball as far as possible is desirable, it is necessary to consider for a moment a very painful subject - Bunker Play.

The mere appearance of a niblick suggests doubts and fear. Other clubs are graceful, smiling. elegant things. The niblick is an angry-looking little cad, coarse, bullet-headed, underbred. Its face looks up as if to say, 'I will raise the ball into the air.' Its smile is treacherous. It does fulfil its promise sometimes; but just as often it smothers its laughter in the sand, leaving you and the ball nonplussed.

No one is ever proud of his bunker play. Some men of strong shoulders are more successful with the niblick than others; but they do not glory in their strength. There are men who give up the hole when they find themselves in sand, preferring to pretend that they seldom get into any to more substantial advantages. So little is force exerted in a bunker regarded, that men who act thus are not credited with weak physique.

There is at the best little pleasure in niblick play. When you are compelled to ask for that implement, it is under a sense of humiliation at having put yourself into sand. Even if you get out, you are an unprofitable servant, not quite so far on with your work in two shots as you ought to have been in one. Perhaps the feeling nearest akin to pleasure derivable from a niblick shot is a partner's sense of relief when you get the ball out. This the player does not share. With the hopefulness inherent in the true golfer, he expected to succeed. Besides, the twenty yards or so the ball has travelled seem a small result, considering the extent to which his withers are wrung.

If there is small joy to be got from bunker play there may be great sorrow. The ball may not be got out in one shot. Indeed, after six it may be worse in than at first. This may entail nothing more than the giving up of the hole. But supposing your adversary to have played two or three more before you got in, how sickening! In medal play or a stroke match, in which you have backed your score against others, can anything be more awful than to feel a sovereign vanishing at each blow? It is a providential arrangement that a niblick is so coarse an implement. If it were club that could scarcely be replaced, men would often add shame to woe by breaking it. But a shaft which can infallibly be replaced for a few shillings is useless as a safety-valve. On the other hand, a niblick is a formidable weapon of offence, and I have seen the life of an adversary, who counted the oft-repeated shots aloud, in serious danger.

It is worthy of observation that bad players are ceteris (i.e. muscles) paribus as effective in a bunker as the best. This is because nobody has any theory about his swing or his stand, or this or that, when addressing himself to a common ordinary bunkered ball. Every one simply thuds at it. Men who. on the green, must needs shuffle, bob, and writhe, each in their own manner, as much as if coming into the presence of the Llama of Tibet, the ball waiting for them as calm and stolid as he, will hit freely and naturally with the niblick. Another reason why one man is as good from an ordinary sand cup as another, is that the ball is best dislodged by a jerk. A lot of sand must be forced away with the ball, so that it is really a heavy object for the nonce. As we have seen, it is because it is not always so - because it is so light - because hard thudding' will smother it - that skill in driving is an art, and not a mere question of strength.

Most bunkered balls, then, are best dislodged by a good coarse jerk. It is usual to take a full swine with a niblick; but my own opinion is that a half one is more effective, particularly if you use a light club. Whether a heavy or a light one should be carried may be left to individual fancy. The weight of the former makes up for any loss of applicable force.

Sometimes a bunkered ball presents peculiarities which make it unadvisable to apply the common thud. If there is a high face to loft, or if there is a mound of sand close in front of the ball, the shot to be described at page 153 is advisable. That miniature face in front is particularly apt to cause disappointment. If there is one behind as well, the player grasps at once the horror of the situation, but not if all is clear in that direction. Yet if the ball be struck in the ordinary way, when there is a face only in front, it is as unlikely to be treated successfully as when entirely surrounded. A mound behind, with flat sand in front, is not nearly so serious. By getting in front, and chopping down close to the ball, or simply by driving mound and ball together, satisfactory results may be expected. The above shot is also the only one that will do in a hard, deep, clay-bottomed bunker, If there is no face to get up, it is different. The ball lies then as well as if on the green, except (and it is a considerable exception) that the club cannot be placed behind it. Be cautious with a tee'd ball in a shallow-sand bunker, however. It is very nearly a mad thing to take a wooden club. Even a cleek or an iron must be selected with much solemnity. But it there is a face to rise over!