THERE is no time when the error of approaching short becomes so glaring as in the winter. This is peculiarly true in England, and probably applies more or less in the States. Unless there has been a wet and uncomfortable summer the links with even a surface of most unpromising clay will stand the strain of the conditions prevalent in the early days of October comparatively well, but, by the time November has fairly set in, any suspicion of firm, hard condition has almost entirely disappeared. The worms are freely at work, and playing the game of golf now has become a more trying and difficult problem than has been the case for many months past. The topped shot does not go careering gaily over a hard, baked surface in its passage over the ground; it meets with obstruction after obstruction, and instead of progressing up the course a matter of 150 or 160 yards, as more often than not it does in the summer months, it will suddenly come to rest when it has traveled half that distance.

It does not pay to hit the balls along the floor, when inland courses are in their winter clothing; it is much safer to keep the ball in the air, for there is infinitely less resistance there. Even taking into account the element of fortune in the way of lies, good, bad, and indifferent, all of which are obtainable in the winter months, it perhaps may be truly said that golf under such conditions supplies a far better test of accurate play than it is prone to do when the ground is hard and baked, as it so often is in July, August, and September. On a heavy course one has to hit the ball truly, or it will not travel, and the player must impart a certain amount of carry in the case of every shot.

There may be occasions when it is possible to run a shot up with an almost positive certainty that the ball will be fairly treated on its way to the hole, but those occasions do not present themselves very often, and the man who does try to play his approaches by running them up to the hole side is invariably taking a great risk of the ball meeting with some soft, clinging obstruction which will sufficiently hamper its progress to leave it yards short of its intended destination. In fact, he is asking for trouble, and has no right to complain if it happens to come his way.

When the ground is heavy and yielding there is, to my mind, only one safe method of approaching, and that is by pitching the ball right up to the pin. If the club is sufficiently lofted and the ball correctly struck, it cannot possibly roll far after it has landed on the putting green, even if the green does happen to be close cut and, in consequence, keen. The more vertical trajectory in the fall of the ball will cause it to remain very near where it has landed. When approaching a putting green which is surrounded by heavy, clinging ground, not devoid of worm casts, make sure and pitch the ball on to the green, and not just short of it.

It is better to pitch it well on to the green in preference to taking the risk of its landing on the ground immediately in front. A lofted iron shot which lands on the fairway of the course seldom rolls more than a foot or two, and, moreover, invariably manages to collect a certain amout of the subsoil on which it has happened to land, and playing a little run up shot from the edge of the green with a ball: which has a plentiful degree of earth adhering to it is apt to make the game a little more difficult than there is really any necessity to make it. The less risk one takes of inviting earth to adhere to the ball the easier the game will, in consequence, become, and one of the ways to avoid this risk is to make sure that approaches will land right on the putting green. Even if the ball goes over the green, it is no worse being off the green on that side than it would be if it was short. In fact, it is perhaps better to be over the green than short of it, as the lies to be obtained there are generally more satisfactory than on the ground short of the green, owing to the fact that there is less traffic on that portion of the ground and, in consequence, less likelihood of the ball landing in any slight depression in the ground caused by another player's footgear. But in the winter months when the ground is soft and heavy, how many approaches does one witness played past the hole? Not fifteen per cent. of shots played to be up to the hole reach their destination; in fact, if one said ten per cent., this estimate would not be far wide of the mark.

To prove this contention I once asked a golfer during the course of a competition on an inland links, which at the time was exceedingly heavy, to stand near a particular hole and mark the percentage of approaches which were played past the hole. The summary of his investigation was that he had seen twenty-six players approach the green; in these twenty-six attempts only one ball finished past the pin, and in this case finished so far past that there was more than a grave suspicion that the player had attempted to loft the ball and had only half succeeded.

After playing all summer on hard, fast ground it is a little difficult for a player to make up his mind to hit his approaches sufficiently hard when the ground has changed to the heavy, clinging order, and although he may have thoroughly realized the altered conditions, he will still invariably find himself short of the hole: Shot after shot, time after time, he may make up his mind that for the remainder of the round he will be up to the hole with every approach, but he will inevitably find that although his purpose and determination may be great, his mental and physical powers will not respond to the call.

This being short of the hole when approaching the green is one of those little weaknesses in golfing life which it is difficult to understand. No amount of experience seems to be of any use to the player. He may, after one or two very severe lessons, manage to hit up to an odd hole or two, but he is, almost of a certainty, sure to drift back into the old state of affairs. The man who will make up his mind to play his approaches for a position past the hole, when the conditions of ground are heavy, will of a surety win a very large percentage of his matches. Not that he will of necessity be often past the hole, but for the reason that he will less seldom be ludicrously short of the green.