For the moment let us consider the swing. As I have previously remarked, little can go wrong if the grip be correct and the head be kept still. The latter form of restraint is, for the ordinary golfer, vital to the success of the stroke, and to the learner I can give no better advice than the hint to drill his head to preserve a state of rigidity by the use of that device conceived by Colonel Quill. Keeping the eye on the ball is important, and I do not suggest that anybody should forget it. But it is a secondary point. Keeping the head still is the prime essential. It is not much use having the vision fixed on the ball when the head is moving - except in the case of a first-class golfer who, when he shifts his head, knows how to recover during the swing. The stance must be easy and comfortable without undue stooping or any degree of stiffness. Ease and comfort are a lot. Just stand in an unconstrained way and address the ball by placing the club-head at the back of it, which is the proper part of the ball on which to fix your eye. It is the part to be hit.

I will not advance as a necessity any sys tern of measurement. Of late years I have experimented a good deal with my own stance. Marking a certain spot for the tee, I have carefully noted the position of my feet before driving the ball. Then I have walked away, returned to the place and driven another ball from the same tee. I have repeated this operation four or five times, marking the position of my feet on each occasion, and in no two cases has the stance been precisely the same. There has not been much variation; yet every stance has been different from every other. So I will not ask the golfer to bother his head about mathematical calculations. Let us assume that he is standing comfortably upon the teeing-ground, addressing the ball. Let him remember that, except as regards the arms, the space which he now occupies ought to constitute the limit of his sphere of movement for that shot. He must act in the area which he has allotted to himself, because he wants to make not a lunge at the ball, but a swing. Even the arms return to that area and finish in it. If his feet reach to either end of a sheet of newspaper, his body ought not to move outside the ground covered by that paper. The golf swing is produced by twisting the body round from the waist as the club 7 goes up, and untwisting it as the club comes down. That is why I say that, having taken up your stance, you must not move out of the space which you occupy as you address the ball. It is purely a matter of winding yourself up with the arms, and unwinding yourself with the arms. Or perhaps I might have said with the club, because it is important to remember that the club-head should always lead. The whole movement is a turn of the body on its own axis. Imagine that, at the waist and neck, you have rings of wheels on which your body will twist round so that the club and the arms can turn it without causing the head to move or the nether limbs to shift more than is necessary to preserve a balance. Let us consider the arms, which, with the club leading them, so to speak, promote this process of winding and unwinding. If I may so explain it, each half of the golf swing - the upward and the downward - consists of two distinct movements which fit so perfectly into one another as to produce a rhythmic whole. Most of my readers have doubtless seen that mechanical kind of doll which raises its hand automatically. With the first jerk, the arm goes half-way up; with the second, it touches the head as though saluting. If that arm worked at the side instead of in front, it would afford a fair notion of the action for the golf swing. It would give, at any rate, the germ of the idea. I do not mean to suggest that the golfer should behave as though he had to wait for a button to be pressed before he could lift his arm beyond a certain point. There must be no spasmodic jerking. But the fact remains that the upward swing is made by two movements, one dovetailing so nicely into the other as to render the complete operation smooth and continuous. The first movement raises the club until its head is pointing upwards, the right hip screwing round the while. The second movement makes the elbows bend and lets the shaft fall into position behind the player's head. As the shaft thus drops, the palms of the hands open a little and the grip is relaxed, save for that exercised by the thumbs and forefingers, which are the grippers-in-chief. To demonstrate the latter fact, I have often held a club solely with the thumbs and forefingers, all the other fingers being off the shaft, and made satisfactory shots. Those other fingers, however, are very useful for guiding the club at all parts of the swing, and I do not mean to suggest that they should ever be off the shaft. They should simply loosen their hold a trifle as the elbows bend; they will regain of their own accord a firmer grip as the club comes down. At the top of the swing, the shaft should be so close to the player's head, without touching it, as to render impossible the wearing of a hat with a brim - or, at any rate, a hard brim. Sometimes one sees ladies golfing in large straw hats. They simply cannot be swinging properly, or they would knock their hats every time.

It is surprising how many golfers omit to perform the second movement in the swing. They raise the club stiffly and seem to consider that the highest point in the air which they can reach must represent the top of the swing, and that there is consequently no need to go back any farther. This half-swing is not nearly so great a handicap with the rubber-cored ball as it was with the gutty, but it is an incomplete way of playing golf. The person who adopts such a style is, I suppose, impressed with the necessity of "sweeping" the ball away instead of hitting it. He has been enjoined so often to "sweep" it off the tee or the fairway that he thinks he cannot do better than describe a sort of semicircle with the club-head. The idea of the sweeping action is very well, but the golf swing is not a sweep pure and simple. It is partly a hit. And the natural method of getting into position for hitting with a stick or any other instrument is to have it behind your head so that you can lash round strongly with it. Well, you want to lash round at the golf ball, but it is essential to exercise restraint as the club begins to come down. It must be travelling at its fastest pace at the moment of impact. To make it do so is the art of the swing. It is the knack that introduces the sweeping action with power behind it.