In this connection, the peculiarities of the seventeenth - the famous " Road " hole - at St Andrews at once occur to the mind. When the ground is hard, the ordinary game is to put the second shot at the foot of the slope in front of the green, run up, and hope for a four, while feeling satisfied to take five. But if you want to adopt bold tactics, it is better to go to the left in spite of the bunker that is there awaiting you, than to play straight and submit yourself to the danger of finishing on the dreaded road, whence in all probability you will simply return to the bunker. This latter hazard is an excellent one in which to execute a niblick-burying shot behind the ball. There is a good chance of getting dead from it, or sufficiently near the hole to obtain a four. They say that when Braid was in that bunker in the third round of the open championship of 1910, the Jubilee championship which he won so brilliantly, he took something like a bucketful of sand in order to play a shot of a few yards. People who were present declare that the very green trembled when his club crashed into the hazard. A good golfer knows exactly what to do in a bunker; nobody can be quite sure with the rubber-cored ball of the best means of playing an approach off an adamantine surface on to a green of similar hardness. One effect of the introduction of the resilient ball has been to make bunkers very useful as places of temporary refuge near the green.

I know that I have not infrequently made my way deliberately into them in order to have the chance of laying the next shot dead. When Braid and I were partners against Duncan and Mayo at Walton Heath a few years ago, I was not afraid of putting my confrere into the bunker on the left of the fifth green. I did so in each round. I knew that from there he was sure to get close to the hole. He did not fail. We won it each time. We are not all so strong as Braid, who can recover from anything; but, under certain conditions, there is something to be gained by considering whether the "trouble," as it is called, can be used to advantage. I remember another foursome decided on a course of indifferent quality, in which my partner and I decided to play into the rough at certain holes. The lies were better there than on the clayey, rain-sodden fairway. We gained an easy victory, but some of the papers remarked on the following day that our golf had not been very good because we had been off the line so often ! There was method in our crookedness.

Now that the " humps and hollows" have become so popular (or, at least, as popular as places of retribution can hope to be), a bunker shot is sometimes presented where no bunker exists. When your ball is at the foot of a high mound which is in the direct line to the hole, and right under your nose in such a way as to prevent anything in the nature of a following-through stroke, the only means to the end is to stab behind the ball in just the same manner as in sand, and make the soil produce the desired lofting effect. This, however, can only be done when the grass is short. The distance which you aim behind the ball must be governed by the nature of the turf; in any case, it will not be so great as in sand. An inch will generally suit the occasion; the point to remember is to dig the niblick into the ground, as you would do in sand, and bury it. Otherwise you will not often get the ball over the mound owing to the unavoidable arrestation of the swing. A sequential point to recollect is to tread down the turf which you have uplifted. Where you have gone others may follow. In playing this stab shot, it is a great help to throw the body slightly forward and nearly all the weight on to the left leg as the club burrows its way forcibly into the earth. In long grass it is impossible to bury the niblick. This particular tool will do a lot of things, and maintain its integrity in times of rough treatment, which even a sledge-hammer might resent; but it will not cut straight down into very long grass and at the same time perform the important operation of making the ball rise. When the grass is rank and an earthen bank confronts the player (a situation that often presents itself in what are sometimes called grass bunkers) tactics different from those employed in an ordinary bunker are demanded. The only feasible plan is to aim several inches behind the ball; cut the grass at the roots with a following-through stroke; and throw the body back at the instant of impact with nearly all the weight on to the right leg. In grass that is positively formidable in length and thickness, it is always necessary to aim well behind the ball (sometimes as much as four or five inches), so as to slice off the herbage at the roots before reaching the ball. There are occasions when the grass comes up in bunches, and flies round your head as though you were being crowned queen (or king) of the May. This, however, is the way to recover. If you are merely in very long grass with no lofty obstacle immediately in front, naturally you will not throw your body back as the club reaches the ball. In such circumstances you should have the weight equally divided. It is still important, however, to aim some little way behind the ball and cut right along the roots of the grass, instead of coming down to the object and trying to scoop it out of its entanglement. The stems have a way of arranging themselves around the ball as though determined to defend it till the last gasp. They must be cut away in the manner described. In gorse, as in long grass, it is necessary to aim well behind the ball, and cut through the bush. It is hefty work; I wish you little of it.

These, then, are the general principles of the business of recovering from difficulties. I do not desire to urge that no other schemes are correct. There are a hundred and one different positions that threaten disaster, and a hundred and one different ways of escaping. Much must be left to the judgment of the player, and to his knowledge of his own powers. The shots that I have described are applicable to those distressing situations of the everyday type. They are sufficient; let us end this chapter of accidents and proceed to happier themes.