It was at St Augustine, in Florida, that I first saw land-crabs scuttling about a golf course. To the man who has grown tired of condemning worms for their malpractices, and allowing grudging approval to sheep and rabbits for their work as mowers of the fairway, life takes a new turn when he observes a family party of crabs ambling around the spot to which he intends to drive. Still, they are quite reasonable creatures. At the approach of human footsteps, they dash off to their holes in the ground. They lose very little time in the task. They are interesting inhabitants of the links; and it would be a great relief in this country if, instead of reading that a ball had been carried off by a crow, we could learn that it had been seized and taken underground by a crab. Or that a golfer, instead of hitting a bird on the wing, had struck a crab on the claw. When I was in the States, the turf generally was not nearly so good as that found in Britain. It must have considerably retarded the progress of American players. In fact, the standard of their golf twelve years ago was very good considering that they had not long taken up the game in a whole-hearted manner, and that they played under difficulties as regards the condition of the ground the like of which we seldom experience in this happy land of velvety turf. Improvement in the courses was bound to come; without it, America could hardly have produced such excellent players as she has sent to Britain.

Wherever I went I found evidence of great enthusiasm for the game. Large crowds followed the matches, and I must confess that I was pleasantly surprised by the knowledge which they displayed of the pastime. The people of the States took to golf with boundless zeal and with a fine regard for traditions, and even in those days, I always felt that the onlookers had a real interest in the play and were not merely curious to know what kind of entertainment this golf might be. All the same, they liked something out of the ordinary, and they were keen on an odd, and perhaps purposeless trick, which I was wont to perform for the sake of variety when I was at Ganton. How they came to hear that I had ever done it I do not know; in any case, they liked it. What I used to do was to place a ball lightly at the top of a gorse-bush, so that no branches barred the passage of a club from underneath, take a full swing at it with a driver, and try to hit it straight up into the air so that it would fall within a yard or so of the spot from which it had been despatched. It may have been good training for the eye; it certainly needed a true swing. It may have been rather silly; but anyhow I could send the ball nearly out of sight into the skies, and sometimes make it drop in the same small bush from which I had hit it. Occasionally, too, the scheme very nearly recoiled on my own head - in the literal sense. The Americans heard of the trick, and often insisted upon my doing it. We have all had our youthful absurdities; that was mine.

One point which impressed me in America was the distance that I could drive. I could make the ball "carry" much farther than in this country. The dryer atmosphere of the States offers less resistance to the ball, and if you happen to flatter yourself, when on the other side of the Atlantic, that you have put yards and yards on to your tee-shots, you suffer an awakening when you return home. But these deceptions are constantly inflicted upon the person who travels in pursuit of golf. Thus in the south of France, hazards and holes look farther off - to the eye of the visitor - than they are in point of fact. You take in the situation at a glance, think that you have executed just the right strength of shot, and are disconcerted to see your ball alight on the far side of the green. Still, these things are educational, and are soon learnt.

Golf is going ahead splendidly in Germany, and I have heard the opinion expressed by German players who know 19 the desires of their countrymen, that if some British people who knew all the requirements of course-construction would select a site and lay out a first-class green near one of the big cities of the Fatherland, the enterprise would be a huge success. So far as my experience goes, the German courses are certainly moderate when judged by our own standard.

In Switzerland, too, the game is making great headway. Montreux, where the golf course is a kind of emerald isle surrounded by snow, may surely be taken as a model by all clubs who find themselves beset with those difficulties which landlords have a way of instituting. In order to secure sufficient ground for twelve extra holes, the Montreux Club had to bargain with eighty-seven landlords. What a time it must have been for the officials. It took three years to successfully complete the negotiations, two of the landowners, whose small plots were situate in the middle of the proposed new course, being possessed with a determination to hold out against even the most tempting offers. Ultimately, however, they gave way, and the committee of the Montreux Club were happy.

Perhaps, sooner or later, I shall go farther afield. From time to time, I have received invitations to visit Australia, South Africa, India, and other countries, but they have seemed so very many driver shots away that I have hesitated to leave my native teeing-ground. Golf is now the game of all nations, as it deserves to be. It has no equal, I think, as a test of human strengths and failings. It is not to be mastered by impetuosity. Nor is skill at it to be attained by indifference to its difficulties. I have often seen and heard myself described as a natural golfer. I can only say that in my younger days I practised as assiduously as anybody in the land. Not one of my shots came to me as a gift pure and simple. For two or three years after I became a profes-19* sional I was always experimenting and thinking out fresh methods of executing strokes - for, in those days, I never saw anybody on whom I could mould my style. Whatever instinct I may have had for golf would never have taken definite shape unless I had pondered a lot and practised a lot. That is the way of the game. There can be no such person in golf as one who plays well without knowing how he does it. A good golfer realizes even to the smallest detail how he obtains his effects. I have set down in this book all that I have learnt in twenty years and more of constant association with the links. I can only hope that the fruits of my experience will be helpful to many another aspirant to efficiency, and that I shall be able to do just what I have advised - just what I have proved on thousands of occasions to be right - when I play my round on the morrow.