Gradually the tops become fewer and the slices more frequent. The slicing nearly always comes from the same cause, namely, that the player does not pivot enough. In order to make him pivot properly I sometimes resort to exaggeration. I tell him that at the top of the swing he ought to be able to see the club-head and half of the shaft, and then get him to try to do so in a practice swing. This sounds as if it meant a very long swing. As a matter of fact it does not, but it does mean a rather exaggerated pivot. I find it a good plan for making the learner get well round with his shoulder. Another plan is to tell him to point the club-head at me at the top of his swing. Of course I stand in such a position that, if he is to do as he is told, he must bring his shoulder well round -and round he does come with a vengeance. There is sometimes great merit in exaggeration.

By this time no doubt I have got to the end of the first hour's lesson, and probably some way into the second. Exactly how much I try to teach a learner at once must of course depend a good deal on him and how he gets on. In nearly every case, however, I find that after the very first stages the thing that I have to rub in for all it is worth is pivoting. It is pivot, pivot, pivot all the time. If the pupil will keep his hands low he has at any rate a chance of pivoting properly, but his hands will come up. Then out goes the club to the right and he cannot turn properly. I always tell him to allow his body to occupy in pivoting the same space and no more than it did in his address. This is really a piece of more advanced instruction, but I find that it often helps the beginner to get the right mental picture of the movement.

A great many people think that they are pivoting when in fact they are only screwing round on the ball of the left foot. This is a bad fault. When it is at all exaggerated it brings the left heel into such a position at the top of the swing that it is almost facing in the direction in which the player is aiming. Now by the time he hits the ball that heel has got to get back to the position from which it started. That is a comparatively long job, much too long to be comfortably managed in the space of time occupied by the down-swing. Of course the player does not manage it, with the result that his heel is in the wrong place and his body contorted at the moment he hits the ball. Never let the heel get past the line of the toe : that is a golden rule, and can never be infringed with impunity.

As regards this matter of footwork, I ought perhaps to have said something before now as to stance. I teach my pupils the square stance, in which I believe most strongly, and there are two other rules that I always try to make them obey. The right foot is to be at right angles with the line of direction; the left foot is to be turned outwards at an angle of forty-five degrees. I think it is important to get that right foot at right angles, because it stops swaying, or at any rate makes it much more difficult. You have only to try a swing to see that this is so. It may, to begin with, make pivoting rather harder. If the right toe is a little turned out the body seems to turn rather more easily, but the advantage of stopping the sway more than counterbalances this, and pivoting with the foot at right angles is only a matter of practice.

There is one other point that I nearly always have to tell a beginner. It is not quite easy to explain. The beginner looks squarely down on to the top of the ball. That is not the way in which a good player looks at the ball except upon the putting green. Observe any good golfer and you will see that he has his head a little on one side. He seems to be leaning it a little to the right. Whatever may be the exact reason of this, experience proves it to be right. Perhaps it makes it a little easier to begin the pivot and let the club start round in the proper direction. It comes naturally to an imitative boy, but not to a grown-up beginner. To him it has to be pointed out, and it certainly is a help to him.

I generally give three lessons of an hour each with the wooden club before I touch irons, and I never teach wooden and iron clubs on the same day. I absolutely refuse to do it. When the time for irons arrives I start my beginner with a mid-iron. I don't tell him anything about half shots and push shots. He is to hit the ball, within reasonable limits, as hard as he can-an honest full smack. I say to him, 'Now the only difference I want you to make between this shot and the shot you have been playing with your driver is just this. When you get near the top of your swing, add a little tension to your left arm and wrist and hand.'This has the effect of making him take a rather shorter and tauter swing.

I don't know precisely why, but the beginner is particularly prone when he has an iron club to give a jump and lift his body upwards. It is certainly more noticeable than with wooden clubs. To cure this the best plan is to try to make him get his weight well on to his left big toe. With this mid-iron shot, be it understood, he is not worrying his head about an ascending or a descending blow. He is just trying to hit the ball. The leaning to the left in the upswing with its consequent transference of weight and descending blow (these things make up really all there is in the 'push shot') come at a later stage, and I have talked about them elsewhere.

After two lessons with the mid-iron, I go on to the mashie. Here the beginner has something quite fresh to tackle. So far he has been playing more or less a full shot. Now I leave the full shot behind, and teach from a half to a quarter shot. Moreover, here I do take him straight away to the descending blow. It is to be remembered that by this time he has had several lessons, is getting familiar with the feel of a club, and is not so elementary as he was.

The first thing I impress on him is that the club must to a considerable extent hug the ground on the way back, and that the loft on the club-face will get the ball up into the air for him. He is not to do anything to help it. Nearly always he wants to pick the club up abruptly with the right hand : to check this, one-handed exercise with the left hand is very useful. As I said, I want him straightway to hit down on the ball a descending blow, which is in all ordinary circumstances the right shot with a mashie, and the best phrase I know, with which to make him see what is wanted, is 'Lean against the club.' That will get him with his weight well forward on to the left foot as his club is going up, and put him into the right position to hit down. It is a phrase that he ought to bear in mind long after he is a beginner. When I miss a mashie shot myself, it is generally because I have not remembered to lean against the club, and I am sure this is true of hundreds of other golfers.

On the same day as I start a pupil with a mashie, I give him a turn at putting. I am sure it is important for him to begin under a teacher's eye and not at his own sweet will, even though there may be more different ways of hitting a ball into the hole than there are of hitting it successfully with other clubs. Personally I putt with a cleek, but to a beginner who has no predisposition one way or the other I recommend an aluminium putter. It makes for more smoothness and more of a pendulum motion, and these are two valuable assets. To encourage this smoothness I always teach a pupil to roll the ball up to the hole with his putter. I know that elsewhere I have said that good putters seem to me to hit the ball a slightly descending blow upon the putting green. I stick to that opinion, but it is one for advanced players, not for golfing babes and sucklings. To think of rolling the ball towards the hole is to play a smooth shot with the sole of the putter keeping close to the ground, hitting the ball beneath its centre, and that, I think, is the safest plan for the ordinary person. The beginner is inclined to pick the club up on the way back with his right hand-that right hand has a deal of mischief to answer for on the way back, whatever the stroke-and he is less likely to do this if he concentrates his mind on rolling the ball.

The three main rules that I try to instil are : (i) Shove the club back with the left hand, (2) Hit with the right hand, (3) Keep the body still; and the greatest of these is the last. Everybody falls into the habit of moving his body in putting at some time or other, and the beginner is particularly given to it. He cannot begin too early or too earnestly to try to keep it still.