In the dim future perhaps some post-impressionist golfer may arise and declare that the follow-through is not only unnecessary, but actually harmful. At present, however, no one, so far as I am aware, has had the hardihood to say so, and it is generally admitted as one of the essentials of good driving that the club head should come well through after the ball. There is scarcely any point about which the new and enthusiastic golfer becomes so excited as this one of following through; yet there are none on which, as it often appears to me, he is so wrong-headed and ignorant.

He is apt to believe that, quite apart from everything that has happened beforehand, some separate magic resides in the twirls and twiddles that his club performs long after the actual hitting of the ball. He determines that the club shall at all hazards come through, and by sheer brute force he does compel it to do so; nay, he stands for an intolerable time with it duly poised over his left shoulder. Yet the ball, singularly enough, scuttles along the ground or soars away with a sidelong motion to take refuge in the whins: the follow-through for photographic purposes is admirable, but the practical result is contemptible.

Now the follow-through, though immensely important, is important chiefly as an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace. That which happens to the club after the ball has gone is really only a piece of evidence - the most convincing possible evidence except the flight of the ball - that the club has reached the ball in a proper manner. This has very often been said before, but the matter is so often misconceived that it may be worth saying again. To bring the club head to the ball in the wrong way, and then, after the mischief is done, to drag it through by main force and suspend it over the left shoulder, is an utterly futile proceeding.

A FINE FINISH.

[To face p. 54.

Yet, half fearing that I have written too vehemently, I must at once disclaim any intention of minimising the importance of the follow-through. If a player finds out for himself or is told by his friends that his club is not coming through, let him pay heed to it, for it is as the writing on the wall. He must consider that he is not a Taylor, who can hit with a sturdy forearm punch and very little apparent follow-through indeed, and that if his club is not coming through he is probably committing one of two main crimes. Either he is letting his body lurch forward as the club comes down, so that the hands get through before the club head, or else he is not so much swinging his club as lifting it up and hitting with a snatchy jerk. Whichever crime he decides on as being his, he will do well to remember that as the club goes up so it will come down, and set to work first of all to see what is the matter with his back swing. This is not to say that the player can never do himself good by concentrating his mind simply on the follow-through. It must be admitted that it is sometimes a beneficial course, although not quite, I fancy, in the way that many people imagine. By visualising his club as sweeping through after the ball, the player can often unconsciously affect his method of taking back the club: the benefit which he attributes wholly to following through comes really from his back swing having unconsciously grown smoother and more sweeping.

There is one point connected with the follow-through which is a delicate and difficult one: to what extent, if at all, is the player to let the body come through with the club. It has been repeated ad nauseam that the body is only to revolve on its own axis. If this be so, it would seem to be clear that the body should certainly not come forward with the club, but occupy at the end of the swing the position that it did at the beginning, subject, of course, to its being necessarily turned in the direction of the ball's flight. Nevertheless, the same people who taught us about the body revolving on its own axis provided us with pictures showing us, as an ideal finish to the swing, a gentleman whose body has evidently lunged as far forward as possible on to the left foot. We might be able to disregard the pictures, but observation with our own eyes shows us that with nearly all good drivers the body has come perceptibly forward at the end of the swing.

On this point one observation clearly falls to be made. The good player's body comes forward not before but after he has struck his blow; it is dragged forward by the impetus of the arms and the club head as they go flying out after the departing ball. The bad player's body, on the other hand, too often tumbles or lurches forward as he is in the act of hitting. No doubt it is impossible to avoid a little of this forward body movement after the ball is struck; to try to do so altogether would cramp the swing and lose power. Yet the difficulty is by no means solved, because at any rate one very great golfer, Mr. Hilton, deliberately advocates the coming right through with the whole body. He says that since many good golfers do not come through with the body, he cannot well call it essential to do so, but he goes on: ' I cannot help feeling that whatever success I have attained has been greatly due to my observance of this principle.' Incidentally it is interesting to know that Mr. Hilton acquired his very pronounced follow-through, not on his own initiative, but because in his boyhood he was nearly driven out of his seven young senses by a judicious parent who insisted, with almost wearisome reiteration, on this point of the game.

The question really seems to resolve itself, like many others in golfing teaching, into one of a balance of temptations. Which is the commoner temptation, to fall backwards or to fall forwards, to come through too much, or not to come through at all? I venture to say that the temptation to overdo the movement of coming through is far greater than that of underdoing it. How many thousands of golfers does one see beginning to hit too soon, dancing on their toes and bending their knees long before the club reaches the ball? Their bodies are through long before they ought to be, with the inevitable result that the club stops with a jerk and never gets through at all. True, one also sees those who do not come through, who fall back feebly on to the right foot at the end of the swing, but on the whole they are the less common. It is a case in which each golfer must recognise his own faults and temptations, and act accordingly; but, since the quite immature golfer is not always capable of so much intelligent thought, I would urge him again to beware of those alluring pictures, and too free a movement of the body.