The advantages of this grip as they are being discovered by more converts than ever before, are greater driving power owing to wrist work being easier, and also the fact that the left arm and hand pull the club through better and drive the ball as it ought to be driven, the overlapping reducing the right hand to a low subjection. No matter how good and careful the player may be, he who uses the two-V grip is certain sometimes to be in trouble with his right hand, which will constantly attempt to establish a lordship over the left, which when done is fatal to the good swing and the straight ball. Straight driving along a good, low trajectory, getting a ball with plenty of run on it, might almost be said to be characteristic of the overlappers, who are certainly off their drive less frequently than their brethren. These being the advantages of overlapping, how is it to be gained by those who have all along been addicted to the plain two-V way of gripping, and now find it impossible after many trials to convert themselves, these trials having been made in the most obvious way by hard practice on the teeing ground and with a brassey through the green? This is a good question to ask, but the answer is too often disappointing. Those who have started their golfing lives as old-fashioned two-V men seem fated to remain as such. As it happens, I believe I have come by the simplest and most effectual way of making the conversion; at all events, it is one that has never failed, though it has been tried in very many cases. It is simplicity itself. Nearly every man who tries to adopt this grip does so with his driver. It is natural, because it is for the driving that he most wants the grip, and he never thinks about it for anything else. In these experiments, however, he feels in constant danger of missing the ball - and sometimes does miss it - is most extremely uncomfortable, entirely lacking in confidence, and sooner or later comes to the conclusion that the overlapping grip, whatever its merits, is not for him. The sure and certain way is to begin with the putter, which is easy and also valuable, because the experience of the best players is that the overlapping grip improves one's putting at least as much as it does one's driving. You may become accustomed enough to this way of gripping the putter on the first day to try it in the most important match or competition. After two or three weeks of this way of putting, let the grip be tried for short running-up approaches, which will be satisfactorily accomplished after a very little practice, and then, after another week or two, let it be used for short lofted shots. The crisis comes when a swing of such length has to be made that the head of the club has to be raised more than elbow-high. A difficulty will be experienced at this stage, but it will soon be overcome, and when it is the way to overlapping with the driver is opened. Within a week the man is a complete and happy convert.

On the general question of grips and gripping, which is high in the minds of golfers preparing for their season's campaign and setting their bags in order, one does feel that points of detail are not generally considered as they should be. In many cases the grip has really more to do with the effectiveness of a club than the head thereof, and yet perhaps not more than one golfer in four is properly suited. In general the grips are too short, too thick, and their thickness is too uniform. A very thick grip tends to take weight from the head, to spoil the feel and balance of the club, and to reduce the sense of control over it, but thickness in moderation is good for weak hands and fingers. Thin grips throw the weight into the head, give extra control, and improve the feel, but in excess need strong hands and fingers. The professionals nearly all use quite thin grips, their hands and fingers being very strong. But remember that the right hand and its fingers are stronger than the others, and also that that hand has less work to do in gripping, while as it is mainly concerned with steadying and guiding it is best suited by thinness of grip. Clearly, then, the grip should be thicker for the left hand than for the right, should, in fact, taper. This morsel of theory is overwhelmingly justified in practice, and that is what we mean when we say that most grips are too uniform in thickness, for they are nearly as thick for the right hand as for the left, and end suddenly with a kind of step just beyond the place where the right forefinger is applied. For hands of moderate strength let the circumference at the top for the left hand be 2 11/16 in. in diameter, and at the place where the right forefinger holds on let it be 2 ½ in. From this point let it taper off gradually for about 4 in. until the leather has nothing underneath it, and then half an inch of wrapping on the bare stick brings the grip, as it were, to fade away into nothing. The full length of a grip of this kind may be about 12 ½ in., and the tapering conduces greatly to the improved feel of the club and to a look that somehow makes for confidence. In the case of iron clubs the length and the decreased thickness towards the bottom are very good when taking a short grip of the club.

Matters appertaining to ladies' golf also come more prominently before the average male player of the game when he is on the Riviera with the sun than they do at other times. He sees more of it for the reason that his home exclusiveness cannot be tolerated there, and he sees much to make him think, even though the best lady players of the game do not often go that way. After watching a ladies' championship for the first time I left the place with some deep reflections. The idea that men have anything whatever to learn from ladies in regard to golf may seem preposterous, but it is not so. There may be a thousand times as many good men golfers as there are lady golfers who are as good, but there are just a few of the latter who are very good indeed, far better than they are generally supposed to be, and their style and methods are very well worth studying. When great events are stirring in golf the leading Scottish newspapers regularly print leading articles upon them, of so much general importance are they considered. After the ladies' championship in question, I read a leading article in a Glasgow daily newspaper, and it said that it was evident that if Miss Ravenscroft and Miss Cecil Leitch were to enter for the Amateur Championship and were to maintain their best Turnberry form the result would be disconcerting to those who hold that the scratch man can give the equally competent woman golfer half a stroke or thereabouts. With this I agree. The game of girls who can drive 250 yards, who can win 330-yard holes in threes to other girls' fours, who can do nine holes in 37, and so forth, needs to be taken quite seriously. The real importance of the matter is just this, that the best of these girls have arrived at a result which is superior to that attained by the average man golfer, and they have reached it by a system and a method which are practised by comparatively few male players. Their golfing principles and styles are quite different. Is there nothing we can copy from them? Surely.