If we consider the plausible and insidious means by which these tricks insinuate themselves into a golfer's affections, it is not so much to be wondered at that he is conquered. By their aid he finds himself suddenly steady, able to beat adversaries previously dreaded, and to win handicap electroplate with strokes to spare. At first they do not even shorten driving, the diseases taking some time to get into the system and cripple the other members. By the time they have done so, it is too late to get rid of them. The player works through stages of foozling, and, after as long a period as it would have taken to be a pretty golfer, he comes out a robust cripple, ungainly, although perhaps strong. This is the prognosis in the most favourable cases, but some would-be golfers are restless in the use of remedies. They employ device after device, add fault to fault. No sooner is their driving weakened by assimilating one, than another, and yet another, infallible 'steadier' presents itself, and is accepted, till at last there is not a chance of their cleanest-hit ball going more than fifty yards. These call themselves the steady old players. Steady, indeed! They top and puff just as often, if not oftener, than those who have acquired their game with less prejudice. They are steady only because it does not matter to their partners whether they hit or miss, and straight, because wildness is not appreciable in very short distances. Any morning we can see men out aiming at a style instead of at a ball. A trial swing now and then, especially before starting, may do no harm. There are even good players who indulge a good deal in the amusement. Them one can distinguish from the deluded creatures who are teaching themselves styles by the free thoughtless way in which they let out. The others - earnest, careful, apparently concentrated on the blade of grass in front of them - do not hear 'Fore - stop that - hurry up,' shouted behind them; for their mind is busy committing to memory their last patent gyration. If the fools would but reflect on a certain passage of Scripture they might learn that neither leopard nor golf spotting can be managed by taking thought, and that thought will not add cubits either to their stature or to their driving. From the latter it will take some off.

These remarks do not apply to the petty variations in their style which many, or most, golfers are conscious of from day to day. Little vagaries are not part of us. Our knowing of them proves them external. If not made a serious point of, they do no harm. One of them will amuse for a round or so, and being the only thing- which, for the moment, divides our attention with the essential of aiming, it may even improve our driving, and then be forgotten, modified, or smoothed out. The points under discussion are so superficial, or even imaginary, that no one notices them but ourselves. They are quite another thing from playing in the Morris, or the Fergusson, or the Fernie manner, which is amusing as tomfoolery, but, taken seriously, bob as he will, can never make a man a golfer.

Even minor sensations, too earnestly attended to, may, however, do a great deal of harm. When, by patiently keeping his attention fixed on hitting, the golfer has got into his best driving form, he is tempted to luxuriate in the sweet balls; to note how he gets his shoulders into the work; or how he feels like a whipcord, from the point of his toe to the head of his club; or, how, without effort, his palms feel glued to the rind of the club; and to determine that in future these joys shall be repeated every shot. Fool! he might as well expect to repeat the pleasure of appeased hunger by a second dinner, or make a pleasant dream more vivid by wakening. Pursuing these agreeable sensations he will lose them, and go off his game besides. Disappointed, he will return to the drudgery of hitting the ball, when lo! some, or all of them come back too. Again he will be off in pursuit of the will-o'-the-wisp, and again break down. It takes long, long experience to convince a golfer that he must give up all the pleasures arising from a shot, except that caused by results, if he is to drive far and sure. Imitating one's own style is only less bad than copying a neighbour's. 'Know thyself may be good philosophy; it is bad golf. Some players remain with the marks of sensation-hunting on their style for life. For instance, A. makes himself knock-kneed when he addresses the ball. Once, long ago, when he drove a beauty, there was a feeling of gripping the ground with the balls of his big toes. If you question him warily, he will tell you the year in which, and the hole at which, the sweet shot was made, that he has grown knock-kneed in endeavouring to repeat. B. sits down, because once, when he had a habit of falling forward (very likely he now falls back), it restored his game C. turns in his toes because it cured him of swaying his body. Of course, it was stopping swaying, not standing like a crab, which restored his driving; but he did not know at the time what he was doing wrong, and so he has made a fetich of his tee, which, he thinks, is the god of driving. I know a golfer who does all these things, and a good many more. In his case they have long ceased to have any meaning or effect upon his play. They are like labels left adhering to our travelling-bags - records of former trips.

Besides the innumerable kinds of missing to which we are liable, certain players get into a way of driving exceptionally high or unusually low. Those who have acquired the latter peculiarity are not, like their opposites, dissatisfied, although they ought to be; for, of the two, they are likely to be the worse players. The high driver is inclined to be impatient at finding himself always playing the odd; but the other, although never steady, is reluctant to part with his reputation for length from the tee, and therefore seldom reforms. Nor is it so easy for him to do so as for the other, whose fault is due to simpler causes.