When the last word has been written about the right and the wrong club to play with, and the wisest way to select them, and when the pupil has been carefully and well informed as to the best and most effective way of hitting the ball, and in practice has become the equal of the master, there still remains the most terrifying problem of all - the temperament of the man for the game, to use a vague expression that will be more or less understood, but which at the most is only a label for a group of activities far beyond my power to analyse.

The equipment of the man to become the golfer seems to me to have been greatly neglected by the writers on the game, certainly as a subject for analytical study, and surely not because it is unimportant, or because it is generally understood. Occasionally a writer refers to it, but incidentally to something he considers more essential, and there are rare chapters to be found here and there on training, etc., but to my mind it has not received anything like the attention that it deserves. That the mechanical skill in playing the shots can be acquired needs no proof: the strikingly high standard reached by the rank and file of the professionals has been noted time and again, and is admitted by every one, and I should go so far as to say that eighty per cent. of the men who take up golf before the age of thirty would certainly be given a certificate of 'scratch possible' by any physiologist. That they do not become scratch players, or anything approaching it, is certain, and it is just as certain that the man beats himself.

Every one has had experience of the type of man who, when he finds himself losing holes, invariably commences complaining that he is far from well - it is liver or indigestion or rheumatism or some such ailment. One such I well remember: if he were beaten he would come back and carefully explain to all who would listen why it was - thus discounting any credit due to the game of the man who had just beaten him.

At last one of his victims turned the tables, in this way: he laid himself out from the start of the round systematically to pretend that the man was bad - 'looked bad,' in fact 'ought not to be playing.' Needless to say he won, and he might have gone on collecting half-crowns to this day, if he had not been so elated with his success that he gave the joke away.

Only the other day I was playing a round with a visitor, who asked me if I had seen so-and-so play lately, mentioning one of our well-known professionals, and added ' what a fine driver he has become,' and then went on to say how he had 'pulled his leg.' This is his story. He said, 'I was playing with him last week and noticed that the first five or six holes he was getting a tremendous length from the tee, and I said to him by way of a joke, "You don't seem to be driving quite so far as you used; how is it?" "Don't you think so, sir?" he answered, "well, I thought I was getting a bit further if anything"; and from that point he pressed so abominably that he never got another drive clean.' Such tactics cannot be recommended, for it must be admitted that they do not represent the best sportsmanship, but the stories are true, and at least illustrate what a very slight mental disturbance will upset even the most skilful golfers.

I could wish this obvious fact were more clearly understood. Pages and pages of paper are everlastingly being filled with the merest nonsense about why the shot is missed - how it should have been played, temporary loss of form, etc. etc. - and the real reason why is carefully disguised from the player, who is seldom made to face the real truth of the matter. Only yesterday I found an old friend of mine explaining in one of the morning papers 'that Mr.------was such a fine putter because he struck the ball in such and such a way.' Rubbish, my friend! There are hundreds of us who have quite a sound style in putting, and know all about 'top spin' and 'drag' and the rest of it, and who putt abominably just when we are most anxious to putt well.

I must ask pardon for deserting the subject for a moment, but I cannot resist presenting this idea to the large group of golfers, links architects and others, who make themselves responsible for altering and bunkering the course. The one and only idea prevalent amongst them seems to be that of expanding the old conventional system of making frontal attacks on the game; the more daring spirits amongst them are certainly creeping very much closer to the hole, and others have hopes of earning a reputation by placing bunkers that are manifestly unfair; but, speaking generally, the result of their efforts is, that a good half of the bunkers are more of a help than a hindrance.

Here is an example. I hold, and I think the majority of the experts at the game will agree with me, that the most difficult four to get is at a two-shot hole, just a drive and an iron, on a flat piece of ground, without a single bunker at all. And why? Simply because it attacks the man. There is no help as to distance, no help as to the kind of shot best suited. But then along comes the architect, and plants a bunker for a pull, and another for the slice - and the problem of distance is gone. He next (if he is modern and up-to-date) practically surrounds the green with bunkers, and the kind of shot to be played is decided for you.

However, to get back to what I wish to say about temperament. My experience as a professional at Oxford afforded me ample opportunity of realising the importance of having, or not having, the right kind of temperament. At the University temperament looms very large, and the order of things lends itself to it. The importance of gaining a 'Blue,' the keen and desperate struggle of those who fancy they have a chance, the short time possible for trials, and the attention given to the match itself by the golfing public, all tend to produce a degree of tension which is scarcely realised outside the universities. The captain is the autocrat, and has the selection in his hands, and it is no easy task. It is not a question of selecting from a few, there are always dozens of likely men, and a regular bunch of players who, if their handicaps register their worth, are all of the same rank; so that in the end it becomes a question of who has the best temperament, and that is where the trouble begins.