And whoever is the champion of any particular period may be interested to know that at no time and place is he ever so much appreciated as away from his own country during the time when it is so wet and cold at home that people play comparatively little - less perhaps than they should do. As masters indeed they are properly regarded, and most dissectingly discussed are the champions when their disciples are abroad; and it is a good thing too, for if there must be influences on the game of humble players, let them come from the heights. In this matter many of us have always regarded John Henry Taylor as quite one of the best of models, despite what any one may say about a lack of beauty in his style. Taylor, five times champion, is indeed a very great master of this game, and he has special advantages as a model in that first he is deeply practical and can explain everything he does correctly (I know some of the greatest players who explain, but incorrectly, that is, they do not even know what they do themselves), can reason, and is almost, as one might say, a medium between the inspired play of Vardon and the mechanical way of Braid. He is one of the most thoroughly practical golfers who have ever played, and perhaps he has taught more other golfers than any one who has ever lived. I believe that to be the case. Taylor plays his wooden clubs with a round swing, and to-day some great authorities are disposed to condemn that style of swing utterly and declare that only the upright one is the real thing. But what about Hoylake in 1913? Then Taylor won his fifth championship, and he did it chiefly, as I believe, by his magnificent driving, done in such circumstances of terrible weather as would have made it next to impossible for any ordinarily good player to drive at all. Above everything, Taylor's golf is effective, and it is effectiveness we want.

Once he explained in an interesting way how he viewed his own driving and how he gained the power that he does with his comparatively short swing. He is what we may call an open-stancer, and he insists that stance and character of swing must be adapted to each other in a special way, that for the open stance only a round-the-body swing is suitable, and that when a man plays an upright sort of swing with a square stance his right elbow must inevitably leave his side, and that is one of the worst and most frequent faults in driving, though one often little suspected or appreciated. If he stood square, says the champion, he feels he would lose direction; if his swing were upright he thinks he would lose distance, and if his right elbow were allowed to leave his side, then he is sure he would lose power; and direction, distance, and power are the three essentials of good driving. So he is all for the open stance and flat swing, and one of its chief merits and necessities is that in the back-swing the wrists do not permit the head of the club to move outwards and backwards in the line of flight behind the ball as it has been preached they should do, but begin to circle the club round at once, and by this means the right elbow is kept to the side. The importance of this elbow movement is very great. It might be safe to say that more than half the golfers of to-day do it wrongly and suffer accordingly. Taylor urges, of course, that the initial turn of the wrists at the very beginning of the swing is extremely important; and then as to the arm movement, he emphasises that the right elbow should be kept close to the side and should move round the side irrespective of any movement of the body. That makes for a smooth flat swing, and a sense of enormous gain in power is certainly the result. He says that he feels a gain of half as much power again by this movement in comparison with an upright swing. The initial wrist movement induces it. He warns those who think of trying to flatten their swing, and so gain some of the power which he certainly has, against allowing excessive body movement to which they will be very liable.