Golfers have always talked of the open stance, but the open as opposed to the shut face of the club is a new technicality in golfing language, and may at first possibly have puzzled some of Duncan's readers. It signifies too a new and revolutionary doctrine. All the books have always laid it down as absolutely fundamental that at the top of the swing the nose of the club should be pointing straight down to the ground. But lately even that has been questioned, and we find Duncan talking, almost as a matter of course, of shutting the face of the club in certain circumstances, as for example in holding the ball up into a left-hand wind. Now when the face of the club is shut the nose at the top of the swing does not point to the ground : the whole club face has a distinct turn heavenward. So here is something which really does appear subversive and Bolshevistic. Moreover, if the nose has not got to point exactly at the ground, the left wrist need not be so severely tucked under the shaft-another upsetting of ancient beliefs. I remember very well the astonishment that was caused by one photograph in Mr. Hutchinson's Book on Golf and Golfers published in 1899. There was a picture of Mr. Guy Ellis, whom Mr. Hutchinson described in a splendid compliment as ' the straightest driver that the writer ever saw,' and there, contrary to all the laws of God or man, was the nose of his club pointing straight up to the sky. However, Mr. Ellis was regarded in all respects as a law to himself, and the question was thus dismissed. Later Mr. Beldam's photographs showed Mr. Maxwell doing something of the same thing, but, as people very truly said, nobody else in the world swung a club in the least like Mr. Maxwell, and again there was no controversy. To-day professionals who are regarded as mortals of orthodoxy talk unblushingly of shutting the club face, and we can see that they do it on occasions and to some slight degree. Duncan tells us which of them do it and which do not. But the solid, revolutionary fact is there. It is a much more marked characteristic of modern golf as regards iron play than wooden play. Speaking with due humility, I think that many people would find some degree of shutting the face very valuable with their irons. With the wooden clubs there seems to me more danger, because the left wrist of many golfers is already disinclined to get at all under the shaft at the top of the swing and needs no further licence in this regard. Of course there is always a danger of exaggerating any new thing in golf, and in regard to this shutting of the face the ordinary mortal is venturing on to particularly perilous ground.

By far the most desperate revolutionary of all has been Abe Mitchell when he threw grave doubt on the value of the follow-through ; but most golfers, while they admit that to watch Mitchell driving is the best fun in the world, have not deluded themselves into imitating him. The follow-through has never been held up as a means in itself of hitting the ball, but as an outward and visible sign that the hitting of the ball has been properly done. For the golfer in the street it so remains and, however paradoxical it may seem, many golfers, by concentrating their minds on what is to happen after the ball is struck, have made themselves strike it properly. The mental picture of a follow-through has helped many a sufferer to disentangle knots in his back swing. To-day we hear far more of punching and hitting the ball and less of sweeping it than we used to, but truth is sometimes a dangerous thing. With weak mortals pretences are often safer.

Another new doctrine is that of 'hands leading,' but it is practised rather than preached. The great golfers who practise it believe that it is too dangerous for golfing babes and sucklings and that these had better know nothing about it. We have always been taught that the head of the club should start the swing and the hands should follow after it in due time ; but Harry Vardon begins his swing by taking back hands and head simultaneously, or even perhaps with the hands showing the way. Duncan, who remodelled his swing on Vardon's, does the same thing, more particularly perhaps in some of his moods than in others, and there are other fine golfers who do it too. These have what is called an upright swing, and they have great advantages ; their club travels longer upon the line on which the ball is to travel than is the case with the more old-fashioned flat swingers : they also have an enviable facility for picking up the ball through the green. I fancy, however, that their belief is that this method, while excellent for a really first-class player, is perilous for the common run. The ordinary golfer has the greatest difficulty in slinging the head of his club round and acquiring the proper turning movement of his body. If he were told to let his hands take the lead, he would not turn at all. And so, unless I am mistaken, 'hands leading 'remains largely a doctrine for champions. The rest of us do better to stand in the old ways.

Finally, as regards driving, there is one doctrine that has always been preached to some extent but is now far more generally practised than it used to be. We have always been taught not to swing too far, but those who taught us sowed some doubts in our minds by swinging the club a long way themselves. It is instructive to look at some of the early photographs of Harry Vardon. The club has gone a surprisingly long way past the horizontal, and the same may be noticed, though not to the same extent, in the other great men. In the case of some of them, increasing age may have had a little to do with the change. No doubt, too, the rubber-cored ball makes a difference, but neither of these reasons account altogether for it. To-day it may be said to be the orthodox doctrine that every inch the club goes past the horizontal at the top of the swing represents so much energy wasted, since the club has to be hauled back into the horizontal position before the real business of hitting begins. Of course every one does not obey this rule. Mitchell, for instance, goes a good deal past the horizontal, and generally, I take it, those who are inclined to do so employ the 'old-fashioned 'grip which allows for a little more play of the club in the right hand. Broadly speaking, however, orthodoxy and rigid control of swing go together, and it is a good thing for driving in general that it is so.