In trying to deal with the elements of driving I treated the turning movement of the left wrist as the foundation of a true swing, which I believe it to be. The player was vehemently exhorted to acquire this wrist movement, and very little more was said as to the path on which the club should travel in the upward swing. It must not be overlooked, however, that there are equally good players, possessing an equally admirable wrist action, who yet take the club back on decidedly different lines. Vardon and Taylor are two conspicuous examples. Vardon has an upright swing, and Taylor a flat one. Vardon's club goes back for some little way almost straight behind the ball, and is then taken up rather suddenly, although sudden is perhaps not a good word to apply to that which is superlatively graceful and easy. Taylor, on the other hand, takes his club back, as he himself describes it, ' well round the right leg.' From the moment the club leaves the ball it travels, not on a straight line behind the ball, but inwards towards the player. Braid is another who seems to take the club well inwards round the legs from the very moment when the swing begins, and he too, like Taylor, has a distinctly flat swing.

Now this taking of the club inwards would seem to be diametrically opposed to some highly respectable and cherished doctrines. In the Badminton Library Mr. Hutchinson says this: 'The club head should swing back, as far as possible, without too forced and painful straining after this object upon a line which would be given by production through the ball and to the player's right of the ball's intended flight.' The words quoted describe very accurately his own method of swinging; he does not begin any turning movement till the club has gone some way back, and it is this that probably accounts for a slight 'hang' in the middle of his swing, a phenomenon of which he is not conscious himself, but which he is willing to take on trust from others.

It is a doctrine that may perhaps be advantageous in so far as it encourages a swing that is big and free, but it certainly complicates matters by introducing two movements instead of one, and so makes it the more difficult to swing smoothly. Moreover, as far as I have been able to observe, it is contrary both to the teaching and practice of the majority of fine players, and I incline, therefore, with great respect to treat it as an eccentricity of genius. To be sure, one is also faced with the fact that Vardon takes the club straight back for some little distance behind the ball, but his again is a different style, with the club taken more abruptly up and with the arms kept much closer to the body. Vardon's indeed is a style by itself, which, much as I admire it, I must frankly admit I never can quite understand. A better driver cannot be found, but it is possible perhaps to find a style which is a safer guide for ordinary mortals.

It is agreed, then, that the club is to be taken rather inwards towards the body in the backward swing, but this really need not alarm anybody into thinking that he has got something quite new to remember. The turning of the wrists properly begun will naturally take the club inwards to a quite sufficient degree, and there is not the least necessity consciously to accentuate it; to do so is to run a grave risk of cramping the swing by getting the arms tucked too closely in to the body, and indeed of ruining it in various other ways. A great many people do not take the club sufficiently in to themselves, and these are generally confirmed slicers who, having thrown the arms far out to the right in the back swing, bring them sharply across to the left in the down swing, thus cutting across the ball in the most fatal conceivable manner. If they be observed closely, it will generally be seen that it is not merely that they take the club back on the wrong line, but that they take it back in the wrong way, with the left wrist doing none of the things that it ought to do. In fact, it is the turn of the wrist, at which I am still hammering away, that is at fault.

There is another point which may be called controversial in regard to the up swing, and which is, I am inclined to think, decidedly important, and that is the behaviour of the right hand at the top of the swing. We used always to be taught that the club should turn freely in the right hand, so that at the top of the swing it should be resting on the web between the forefinger and thumb. I may quote from the late Mr. Everard's interesting book, Golf in Theory and Practice. While saying that it was an open question whether the grip of the right hand should be tight or loose, and whether it should be a grip with the fingers or the palm, he adds this: 'But one thing is certain, that, when the club strikes the ball, the shaft in all cases must have arrived in such a position that it is resting in the fork at the base of the thumb; those who adopt the finger grip allow it to drop into that position during the upward swing.' I do not think this very positive statement was accurate in 1896 when it was written. For instance, Mr. Hilton was then, as he is now, one of the best of all golfers, and he has told me that never since he was a boy of fourteen did he let the club thus fall into the fork at the base of the thumb. Neither, I am very sure, did Taylor or Mr. Laidlay, who both flourished in 1896; indeed, it is one of the merits of their method of holding the club that the right forefinger is almost bound to retain its control of the club throughout, and never let it slip. Vardon, who has the same grip, in describing his own position at the top of the swing, says ' the grip of the thumb and first finger of the right hand ... is still as firm as at the beginning.'

At any rate, the statement would be totally inaccurate if made to-day. The majority of professionals adopt the so-called Vardon grip, and so the club does not glide about in the hand, but remains immovable.