The excessive violence of those who advocate the abolition of the stymie sometimes drives those who defend it into the use of language that is likewise excessive. The abolitionists talk as if no stymie could be circumvented, which is sheer nonsense, and their opponents are apt to retort that there is no stymie that is impossible, which is taking rather an optimistic view of the situation. It is quite safe to say, however, that a great many stymies are called impossible, either through ignorance or the fury of the moment, which are not only possible to circumvent but in many cases reasonably easy. When the adversary's ball lies at a distance of more than six inches between the player's ball and the hole, there are, broadly speaking, two courses for the latter to adopt: he must putt his ball so as to make it go round the blockading ball or he must loft it over.

As to the first, it may be said that the ball can be made to turn only to a very small extent if the player has nothing to depend on but his own skill, but there are comparatively few greens on which there is not some little turn in the ground, and a very little help from the ground makes an enormous difference. So it is particularly essential to repress the impotent fury natural under the circumstances, and study the lie of the ground with the most meticulous care. It is also to be noted that the nature of the grass makes a great deal of difference, and that the ball can be made to turn far more on a green that is comparatively keen than on one that is slow and heavy. Finally, it may be laid down with some confidence that it is far easier to make the ball turn from left to right than from right to left; the slice, as ever, is easier than the pull.

I will assume that the player, having duly considered all these things, decides to play round the offending ball, and that he proposes to pass it on the left-hand side. The stroke, though capable of being played either very badly or very well, is yet a comparatively simple one, in that it is to be played with a slicing motion of the club, and to take the club out to the right and draw it across the line to the left is a natural - often an incorrigibly natural - movement. For the playing of this stroke either a putting cleek or even an iron is preferable to a wooden or aluminium putter; from the face of the latter the ball seems to leap too quickly away, before the cut has, so to speak, had time to work. Having taken his iron club, the player turns the face preferably a little out to the right, and plays a cutting shot across the line from right to left. He must not expect to see the ball describe a large and beautiful curve, because no human skill can make it do that; but it will take every possible advantage of any helpful slope, and if it hits the corner of the hole it will, if I may so describe it, bite the edge and fall in; whereas a ball played without any cut would resolutely decline to go out of its way. If the ball has to be played so as to come in from right to left, the stroke is theoretically the exact converse of the one just described, but practically the exact converse of that slicing process is unattainable. To take the club inwards towards the body, and then to push it outwards across the line, is an unnatural and almost impossibly difficult feat. To attempt this outward cut to the same extent as the inward is to court disaster. The best thing that the player can do - and bad is the best - is to take some fairly lofted club, hit the ball off the extreme point of the nose, taking the club back slightly towards the body and encouraging the hook in moderation by the turning-over movement of the right wrist. When it is essential to hook the ball to any perceptible extent, he will be well advised to consider very seriously the desirability of a lofting stroke.

This lofting stroke is often, of course, the only one possible. It is regarded with hopeless awe by many golfers, and if successfully played produces louder thunders of applause than any other. Yet as often as not the stroke is not a really difficult one, if only the player be not too much overwhelmed by his own audacity in attempting it. When the two balls are close together and the hole is some little way off, the stroke really presents no vast difficulties; indeed, the mere consciousness of having a magnificent excuse for missing will make many a man hole out under such circumstances who would have missed a straightforward putt with no ball in the way. Even when the hole is so close that the ball has to be pitched right into it or on to the very lip, the shot is by no manner of means impossible, if only the striker have sufficient confidence in his club and do not try to do all the work himself. Too often we see the stroke attempted on the lines of a curtailed mashie shot. The victim attempts to cut the ball heavily, picks up his hand quickly in order to ensure a sharp rise, and performs many other futile and laborious actions with a quite incommensurate result. He relies wholly on himself and not at all on his club. If, on the other hand, he had merely taken a lofted club and putted with it, he would as likely as not have been successful. The club must of course be well lofted - either a mashie, [the face of which is well set back, or a niblick. I incline to think the mashie the better club, since there is something about the thick sole of the niblick that suggests a difficulty in gliding smoothly under the ball. Best, perhaps, of all is one of those ancient lofting-irons with a vast expanse of face, tremendously set back, that are occasionally and irreverently called shovels. I am happy in the possession of a specimen that emerged from Tom Dunn's shop at North Berwick in the very early eighties, and is a wonderful overcomer of stymies. A sufficiently lofted club, used almost exactly after the manner of a putter, will get the ball quite high enough into the air to clear the biggest golf-ball that ever was made. As in putting, the club should be taken back close to the ground, and should follow through in the same way; anything in the nature of a deliberate picking up of the club only adds to the difficulties and possesses no compensating advantage whatever. Even to call the stroke a pitch is to run some risk of getting a wrong idea of it into one's head. To think of it purely as a putt is some way towards coping with it.

There are many stymies that are to all intents and purposes insuperable, and one of the most deadly is laid when the opponent's ball is within an inch or two of the hole, and the player's ball is some considerable distance away. It is humanly possible to play the ball so that it shall pitch just short of the obstacle and clear it at the first bounce, but to attempt it is indeed a desperate measure. It is also possible to play a running-through shot as in billiards, but I only once remember to have seen it accomplished. I remember that one occasion very vividly, because in a certain international match at Sandwich I thought I had stymied Mr. John Low very satisfactorily, only to see my own ball driven far away and his nestling in the bottom of the hole. I ought to add that Mr. W. E. Fairlie, one of the very best of all putters, became at one time so skilful in the playing of this shot that he could, I believe, accomplish it more often than not. That, however, was with a gutty, and the stroke is a much more difficult one with the rubber-cored ball.