In the last chapter I presumed that the practiser had a golf course ready to his hand. If he has not he may have a field for long shots and a garden for short ones. These are not so good as a course, but much better than none at all. In the field there is generally some definite point that can be taken as a mark, and there is also the wind, which blows impartially for the rich man on his golf course or the poor man in his meadow. In the garden there is generally no lack of hazard if the owner does not object to pitches being played over his flower-beds. There is a natural temptation to spare his feelings as regards divots, but this must be resisted. To be afraid of taking turf is to hit the ball gingerly, and that will not do: the practiser must be firm with his pitches, and if necessary with the owner of the garden.

Again, apart from putting on the drawing-room carpet, practising of a sort is possible indoors. As to its benefit I grow sceptical as I grow older. I have had plenty of experience to make me so, for I have been an inveterate indoor practiser. I have worn holes in the carpet by swinging, and broken lamps; I have pitched into a capacious armchair;

I have practised putting in a bell-tent with the tent pole for a mark, and I am inclined to think that I have done myself at least as much harm as good. This is not to say that somebody else cannot do himself good: only he must have more sense and self-control than I have. In the 'Badminton Library' there is a picture of a gentleman, just emerged from his bath and girt with a towel, waggling a golf club. He is a sensible man: by these few waggles he is retaining something of the touch of his club, so that when he next uses it it will not feel as strange and stiff as a cricket bat. By all means let him waggle freely, and even ferociously: it keeps his wrists supple and his hands familiar with the feel of a grip. The professional in his shop is not swinging a club, but he is for ever handling one ; it always feels a live thing in his grasp, not something dead and unfamiliar. That feeling is what the amateur should aim at, and the waggles after his tub will help him. So will just a few swings if, to adapt the words of the 'Jolly Young Waterman,'he 'swing along thinking of nothing at all.' But to swing theoretically indoors is dangerous, for there is no means of testing the theories, and if persisted in to excess it will send the golfer to the tee next Saturday morning, with his poor mind a mere battlefield for conflicting ideas. Sometimes it can be beneficial. I recollect once at Sandwich while dressing for dinner at the 'Bell,'being moved to swing with the poker in my room. I had been driving lamentably, and on the morrow was a match between the Bar and the Stock Exchange-a 'blood match' against doughty opponents. Scarcely had I seized the poker when a light seemed to come to me. I swung, and swung again, and knew that I had 'got it right this time.' I was sadly late for my dinner, but I drove like an angel next day and trounced my stockbroker. I tell that story, however, as the exception to prove my rule that, save for the entirely sane, indoor swinging should be a physical and not an intellectual exercise. An indoor 'golf school ' where a real ball can be hit into a net is another matter. I have never tried it, but I can imagine that it may be both instructive and entertaining. In America, where the winter cuts off the golfer altogether from his game, the indoor school is a regular institution, and I believe there are ingenious mechanical inventions to test the length and direction of the shot, so that the practiser may by the aid of a plan of a course amuse himself by playing an imaginary round.

Mr. Horace Hutchinson has recommended the swinging of a club indoors before a looking-glass. I have an enormous respect for him and everything he says, but on this point I am just a little doubtful. Our eye ought to be kept on the hypothetical ball. If we lift it to look at our reflection, that movement of the head must to some extent dislocate the swing. If we watch the entire swing we shall be watching a movement that differs greatly from our real swing at a real ball. The most we can do is, I think, to pause at the top of the up-swing or the end of the follow-through. 'Just step out here and look at yourselves,' said the Irish drill-sergeant to his awkward squad, and at these two points in the swing we can do that and perhaps learn something. We may observe, for instance, whither the face of the club is pointing at the top of the upward swing. We can never hope to see, however, why and how we mistime a stroke, where that horrid little hitch comes in that we can feel but never locate.

The practising of pitches indoors is subject to the same difficulty as practising on the sacred turf of a garden lawn. We must come down hard on the shot without fear or favour, and we really must not cut divots out of the carpet. If we care to take down all the pictures in a big room, barricade the windows with mattresses and play off a mat, and if the servants do not all give notice in consequence, well and good. Otherwise we had better leave indoor pitches alone.

Putting is admittedly a separate art from that of playing golf. A famous professional player of billiards, after watching golf for the first time, declared that, were he to take up the game, he would practise nothing but putting for two years, until he could make sure of holing out from four yards: then he would learn the golfing strokes. Too many people make a mental distinction between the strokes on the green and all the other strokes, but not in the billiard player's way. They regard the god of putting as a capricious and Puck-like sprite that will one day be friendly and on the next delight to make fools of them. They never seriously try to tame him and make him permanently their friend. 'Oh yes,' they will say, 'I played very well, but I could not putt'; or conversely, 'I could not play a bit, but luckily I managed to get some long putts in.' This is not the frame of mind that will make a good putter, and 'the man who can putt,' if not always 'a match for any one,' is a match for ninety-nine out of a hundred in his particular walk of golfing life.