EARLY in this book the statement is made that, under present-day conditions, it is comparatively easy to enjoy a fair measure of success on the links. In the abstract, the declaration is perhaps more cheery than convincing. I do not wish it to be taken as meaning that to reach the loftiest heights of golfing fame is a simple matter. To become a first-class golfer still requires much patient study. During recent years, however, the game has become the outstanding recreation of busy men, and they usually insist that they do not want to waste their precious hours of leisure in taking lessons and practising the same shot time after time. They want to get out on to the course, and have a match with somebody.

It is not too much to say that a new class of golfers has arisen since the arrival of the rubber-cored ball. It numbers thousands of people, and they are chiefly conspicuous for the extreme carelessness with which they play their shots - carelessness which has been born, I suppose, of the knowledge that the ball is often very kind to the bad player. Many of them declare that all they desire is exercise, and that they do not mind how badly they shape as golfers.

They generally express these sentiments when they stand about six down with five to play, and the match is over. Probably there are very few golfers devoid of ambition to make headway at the pastime, but undoubtedly there are many who feel that it would be a frittering away of time to take lessons, when they might be contesting some exciting games. The ease with which the ball can be persuaded a considerable distance has generated a spirit of heedlessness. This type of golfer is very unwise, because a short course of tuition at the outset of his golfing career might have been the means of giving him victory on numerous occasions when defeat has been his portion. On almost every course one sees many people who are clear examples of early neglect. They hold the club wrongly; in fact, they do nearly everything wrongly. And yet they marvel at the absence of appreciable improvement at the end of six months of golf.

They constitute such a numerous section of the community that I may here bring out a few points which should be of assistance to them in the correction of their faults. It has been said that there are ninety-nine things to remember while playing a stroke, and that the disregard of any one of them is sure to spoil the effort. To the golfer who is in the throes of a long novitiate, and who is at a loss to understand his or her repeated failure and protracted absence of progress, I say that there are just two primary and all-important points to remember. They are to grip the club properly and to keep the head steady. Master those two difficulties, and you are certain to advance in some degree. Most of the bad golf that is played is attributable to either a wrong method of holding the club or the moving of the head. There are other things to be learnt later, but to succeed in these two essentials is to place oneself well on the road to progress. To ignore them is to render progress practically impossible. Of the two, perhaps the more important is the preservation, until the ball has been struck, of steadiness of the head. Directly that necessary nuisance starts to move with the club during the upward swing, the body begins to sway and is thrown out of gear and off its balance. The result is almost inevitably a bad shot. Amongst first-class players there are a few exceptions to the rule, and I sometimes think that they know more about the game than anybody else. They know so much about it that they are able to fly in the face of several established principles of the correct golfing style, and yet perform satisfactorily on the links. They are a law unto themselves.

For the old axiom, "Keep your eye on the ball," I would substitute, "Keep your head still," because, by performing the latter act of restrainment, you give the eye little chance to wander, which it certainly should not do, and you obtain the additional advantage of rendering comparatively easy the proper turn of the body. Directly you move the head, everything starts to go wrong. The body begins to sway and to prepare for a kind of lunge at the ball; and lunging, in the generally accepted sense of the word, is generally useless in golf. The action, to produce consistent success, must be that of swinging, with a certain element of hitting introduced in order to make for power.

This may be an elementary truth, known to and appreciated by many thousands of players; but I cannot help thinking that there are thousands of others who either have not heard it or do not realize its importance. It is astonishing how many people fall into an incorrect style, and render practically impossible the execution of a good shot ere they have taken the club-head a yard from the ball. The player's head moves in the same direction as the club, the body goes with it, as it would have to do unless the performer possessed a neck of india-rubber; and then all is over bar the imprecation or subdued disappointment.

Undoubtedly, however, there are very many golfers who know the value of the rule, and who think they are keeping their heads still when all the while they are doing nothing of the kind. Indeed, these constitute the majority. Often, during a course of instruction, the professional remarks at the end of a stroke, "You mustn't move your head," only to receive the almost indignant reply, "Well, I'm sure I didn't move it that time." The pupil is convinced that he has fulfilled the requirement to the last letter, and it is sometimes very difficult to convince him that he has not done so. His belief is whole-hearted. All the same, the intelligent instructor knows exactly what is wrong, and he can only possess his soul in patience as he says, "Now try again; and be sure you keep your head still." Enthusiasts have adopted truly noble and desperate measures in order to master this necessity. There was once a man who tied his head to a tree as a means of teaching it a lesson. Whenever it received a jerk - and some of the jerks must have been almost sufficient to dislocate his neck - he knew that he had committed the old error. There was another player who thought of a highly ingenious device. I understand that to a button on his waistcoat he affixed a piece of elastic - not securely, but with just sufficient firmness that a real tug at it would pull it off the button. The other end he held tightly in his teeth so that the elastic was moderately taut without being severely stretched. Then he set his teeth with great good purpose and made his swing. His theory was that if the elastic jumped off the button and smacked him in the face, he would know that he had moved his head. Unfortunately he had forgotten that his body would move with his head.