A Preface would be superfluous were it not necessary to say a word or two about the Illustrations. My aim was to show (for the first time, I believe), by means of instantaneous photography, the movements made by players with a classical style in the process of striking a golf ball. For plates in this book (with the exception of Nos. XII., xiii., XVI., xvii., and xviii., which are the work of Mr. Alexander Nicol, Photographer) I have to, and do, cordially thank my friend Mr. A. F. Macfie, whose knowledge of the game, and whose skill with the camera, have enabled him to catch movements which are in many cases so swift as to escape ordinary observation. That the illustrations, therefore, truly represent the styles of the fine players who stood for them, no reader need doubt.

The authority of the text is another matter. It may be - nay, it has been - asked, 'What does he know about it?' Indeed (and alas!) I cannot speak from the highest platform. But if a poor cricketer, a hopeless billiard player, an execrable shot, begins golf by the doctor's orders after three decades, flounders hopelessly for years, and then by theory and experiment evolves a golf which I shall only characterise as infinitely better than his cricket, his billiards, or his shooting ever were, it is evident that he knows (whether he can say it) something of that department of brick-making which does not depend upon the quality of the straw.

3 Belgrave Crescent, Edinburgh, May 1887.