High driving is the result of too upright a swing. I do not mean that the onlooker sees the club go over the player's head, or anything of that sort; but he may detect that the club reaches, and also follows the ball at too steep a gradient. The typical high driver has a neat style - a little too easy, perhaps. He stands open, and with the ball too much opposite the right foot, on which he very decidedly leans his weight. The position makes it difficult for him to take a sweep back near the ground, and his easy, flipping swing tends to make the departure more abrupt still. Of course, many a skier does not stand in tin's way. So much the better for him; he will have less trouble in describing a full segment of a circle, and of a larger one It is not the position, but the way of coming down on the ball which skies it. A man standing for a pull, and pressing, often skies. If he asks his caddy how that was, he will say, 'You swung too quick.' So he did, but in this case quickness was the result of lifting the club too straight up, in his hurry to be back. I have often noticed that when a long, pulling shot is intended, the sky can be foretold if the player place himself with the ball less opposite the left foot than it should be for a bow-shaped raker.

In driving low, it is essential that the weight of the body rest more on the left than on the right leg, and that the hands pass over an imaginary line between the eye and the ball, in advance of the club head. If he is in the habit of standing square to the line he is going, it will be observed that a low driver has his ball more nearly opposite his left foot than is orthodox. This manner of address is not the cause of his abnormal trajectory, but a correction necessary to make his scheme of hitting succeed; as his hands are to pass over the ball before the club head (not at the same instant, as in the case of a true driver), he must thus stand behind, because if he did not, there would be no room between his grip and the ground for the club to continue its course after impact. By standing behind, the limit of arm's reach is touched immediately the ball is struck, and the hands sweep up to the level of the shoulder, leaving room between them and the ground for the club to follow. There would be no objection to this mode of driving, so efficient when it comes off, were it not bristling with difficulties. For one thing, a hook must be expected from time to time. The ball is too near the extreme point to which it is possible to sweep the club along the line of fire, the point at which the hands must do one of three things - stop altogether, rise towards the level of the shoulder, or sweep round the body. The first contingency has nothing to do with golf. If the hands are at the rise before the ball is reached, so is the club, and we have a skimmer off the horn, or a top. If they are kept down to prevent it, the club must sweep round and hook the ball. To see that this must be so, take an exaggerated case. Let the player stand normally - that is, parallel to the line of fire; but let the ball be placed as far in front of the left foot as it ought properly to be behind it. By leaning well on to that leg, it may be driven straight, but it would be easier to drive it at right angles. Low driving is prone to deride its votaries in another way. For them, a topped, or a heeled, or a toed ball is the same thing as for others; but woe betide the low driver if he take it thick! His adversary's 'sclaff will send as far anything else, provided he has his grip firm. A little grass and earth no more checks a club than a little skin a razor. Let the other touch ground. and his ball will spout into the air, and land twenty yards from the tee; or he may give a wrench, turn his club, and drive away to cover point. His hands being in advance of it, they are nearer to the ground than the club's length, so that it jams, stops, and jerks the ball up feebly; or else it carves out a new course for itself away to the right, round the gate the hands have closed, and there is a raker to whatever country lies in that direction. With a hook to begin with, and a shot like this to follow, the player, after two long shots, may find himself again at the tee. Instead of standing parallel to their intended direction, low drivers, and those who are so foolish as to try to be against wind, sometimes get rid of the risk of sticking in the ground by standing for a pull. They sweep the ball round, the club passing over the ground as does a scythe, instead of straight over it. The great disadvantage of this expedient is its wildness. The ball must go off at a tangent from the circular sweep, and there is only one which is straight. For low driving an upright club is best. It is easier to stand over it - an essential. If you play for a pull, the arc of the circle described over the ground is larger, and the tangents at which the ball flies off more nearly coincident with it. The lowest driving club is the putter, because it is so upright; but of course it is too short to carry far.

Getting both hands well under the club also produces a low carry, and fairly long shots against wind, or where the ground is favourable. But players in this style are not long drivers under ordinary circumstances. Indeed, but for their balls flying low they would be short, this grip, as already shown, making a free, full swing impossible.

Although short drivers are scarcely a class by themselves, it is convenient now to treat consecutively some of the causes of shortness not already incidentally mentioned. Amongst those who are born late into the golfing world (whose period of gestation has endured, say thirty years), many deliberately confine themselves to a half swing. Very properly beginning with this, they put a check upon their growing suppleness, and trust to powerful clubs and clean hitting. There is much to be said in favour of such procedure They sooner arrive at maturity, and they escape (by keeping back from them) all the man-traps. laid for the long-swing hunter. A half swing will never enable a man to say that he has driven the longest ball on record - at least truthfully, which is doubtless different - but it is effective, and will last. What a slogger loses in carry by shortness of sweep, he nearly regains by tautness of muscle. The slogger has a great advantage in this, too, that he is never tempted to press through wounded vanity. If he is outdriven a little, what of it? Is it not wonderful that he should get so far? How strong he feels. Better still, how strong he is admitted to be. It is a simple proportion sum. A. drives 200 yards with one shot, B. 190 with half a shot; how much stronger is B. than A.? Whilst his biceps is being admired, A.'s, which is, perhaps, bigger, must remain in its sleeve; or if produced, what is it? Bad meat, evidently, to judge by the driving. A. may indeed, perhaps, be evidently a clumsy player, and his reputation for strength will, in consequence, be saved; but it is a poor alternative to choose between being an awkward Samson and a puny fellow. Of all short drivers the slogger is the happiest; whilst his converse - he whose swing is short after impact - is the most contemptible in the matter of strength. As I have before pointed out, no one notices where a man's club goes after hitting the ball. The reversed slogger is merely written down a fraud if he has broad shoulders. The onlooker will conclude that they are tailor-made. To make it worse, his driving is even shorter than the slogger's. For some reason, which I do not know, the second part of a swing is the more telling of the two.

We have seen that if a man has not a first-class combination of hand and eye, he will not have a game at all if he aims at very long driving. At the same time, many err on the side of hitting too easily, especially at first. Both mind and muscle accustom themselves to a conception of how the thing is to be done, of which they never get rid. Once formed, it is of no use for them to hit harder, unless they make a fresh start altogether. These are usually neat players, who stand too near the ball. But it is no use to get further away. Their muscles have accustomed themselves to work in a certain way.

A common cause of short driving, apart from eye (of course, in these paragraphs I am speaking of players, not duffers), is a loose grip. There is confusion of opinion as to how tight one ought to hold.

One fine driver will tell you that he grasps his club lightly; another, that he clings as firmly as possible. The difference of opinion arises from quality of hands, and it may be assumed that neither lets the club move in the least degree from the beginning to the end of a stroke. A soft, well-padded hand, or a strong one, is firm unconsciously; a bony one must hold tight; a weak, bony hand, no matter what its owner is otherwise, conduces to short driving. If it holds tight, other muscles become sympathetically too rigid, and the ball is nipped. If it holds naturally, the swing must either be easy, or else the club slips a little. All three conditions of matters produce short driving. The golfer with weak hands must learn to hold tight without tele-graphing the exertion to other muscles - a very difficult feat - or accept shortish driving as his lot. If he does this, the second alternative - to hold naturally and swing easy - is the best to adopt. To the first he cannot settle, the third will rub and blister his hands.