I said something just now of my preference for the 'All air route' up to the hole. This is to be made easier this year, as I believe that most of the popular brands of balls are to be wound at a higher tension, which will make them more resilient and cause them to stay longer in the air. At the same time, a golfer who buys a ball for its durability, and incidentally its bunker-jumping properties, will still be able to get the soft ball. The good player has been handicapped for years by the construction of the ball, as naturally the manufacturers have catered for the majority who prefer a ball that does not cut readily, and a ball of this type must not be hard wound. But even with a little more help from the ball there will still be art in hitting one two hundred yards on to a green and making it stay there.

Now, to jump to another subject, there has recently been a competition running in a trade paper, the 'P. G.,'competitors being asked to vote as to who are the best players with driver, brassy, spoon, cleek, iron, mashie, niblick (the latter club being specially put in for Ray), and putter. Mitchell was voted the best from the tee, Braid with the brassy ; Sandy Herd and myself had a fight for honours with the spoon, but I won by a vote. Vardon was the best with cleek and iron, Taylor the mashie, Ray the niblick, and Jack White the putter. If I had had a shot at the competition, I should have voted driver, Mitchell; wooden-club seconds up to the hole, Ray ; cleek, Vardon ; iron and mashie, Taylor; and Jack White, the putter. I think Mitchell the most consistently long driver to-day. Ray's long seconds up to the hole are best because of the distances he gets out of all sorts of lies, and he is also able to stop them nearly where they drop. Vardon is the man for the cleek, because he has always stuck to it and has seldom used a spoon. Taylor is best with iron and mashie, because he can make the ball travel faster to its goal and stop as quickly as would a slower flying ball. I should choose White for the putter, because of his sound methods. I am such a great believer in the 'All air route 'that I have left out Braid and Herd. My reason is that every now and again they play shots in which, though the ball may go near its object, it is doing too much on the ground, and that makes for an element of luck. Naturally, when either of these players plays a run-up shot, the shot must be a possible one, otherwise he would pitch it; but I believe in keeping the ball clear of the ground if you can possibly do so.

I often shut the club-face off the tee when I wish to keep the ball down or get a little 'draw,'but nearly all my other shots are hit with the club-face open. A part of my game that has improved since 1913 is my mashie and mashie-niblick play. By that year I had come to the conclusion that there was less chance of error in Vardon's method of taking up the club, which is a two-handed business with very little turning or bending of the wrist. It is the nearest thing to a lift that a swing can be. At the same time I like the way in which Taylor comes down on the ball, and I think a combination of the two is the 'super method' of approaching. When I can 'get it' I can put the ball pretty close to the hole. But it cannot always be done, for I often instinctively go back to my old style, using a lot of wristwork on the up-swing, and allowing the right hand to climb over the left at impact, the natural way to one who has been reared on a course where the run-up shot is encouraged. A mashie and putter were the last two clubs to complete my set when I was a boy. I remember one of our local cracks going to a Championship which Taylor won, and coming back full of Taylor's wonderful 'cut' mashie shots. Well, all us boys who had been running them up to the hole with an iron must now of course get a mashie. I got hold of an old-fashioned lofting iron, and we started to develop this 'cut' shot. We could toss them up all right and make the ball break to the right ; but like every one else we exaggerated, so that we got a bit of cut into every shot we played, and after a while went back to our old methods.

The truth of the matter is that Taylor does not hit the ball an inward glancing blow, which is the only way in which what we understand as the 'cut' shot can be played. When Taylor plays an ordinary approach and the ball breaks to the right, he has not played a good one. He would much rather see that ball go straight on. The whole secret of Taylor's approaching is that he is always hitting the ball a straight descending blow with the blade as open as it is possible to have it. By hitting the ball down, and by having this open blade, he secures the maximum amount of under-spin. Now the man who hits the ball a straight descending blow, and at impact allows the right hand to turn over, cannot get as much stop on as Taylor does; for the turning over of the right hand tends to shut the blade, and the ball is hit nearer its centre instead of at the bottom.

A favourite shot of mine is a wooden-club shot up to the hole, or a full iron where it is possible to bang the ball up to the hole and make it stay there. I play this shot with the left wrist more under the shaft than it is in my tee shot: this opens the club-face, and so helps to get just a suspicion of cut on. I have also to be lighter on my left foot at the top of the swing so that I can strike the ball an ascending blow. By doing this and using the full amount of loft on the club-face, I can hit the ball as far below its centre as possible and so get height. Vardon and Ray both play this shot well, as their natural way of hitting a ball is to be light on the left foot at the top of the swing.

I was playing at Bournemouth the other day, and on the whole playing quite well. Going to the tenth my partner's caddie said to him, after I had put my drive just off the course on the right, 'This gentleman would be a good player, sir, if he could only 'it 'em straight.' When off the line I used generally to be so on the right-hand side, but lately it has been the other way. At the P.G.A. exhibition I picked up a driver made by Frank Frostick, and I have used it ever since. It has had a peculiar effect on my game in this one respect. The club has a decided hook, and though I drive well with it, I find myself in consequence of this hook standing too much in front of my ball for long seconds, whether it be with a wooden club or an iron. I have the greatest difficulty in getting my stance. Over and over again I feel myself too much in front of the ball. Sometimes I have time to adjust my stance; at other times it is too late, and I find my ball on the left of the green. For many years now I have habitually used wooden clubs that tend to 'lie away,'with the result that, as I said, my ball when off the line used to be on the right of the course. To-day I find it more often on the left. Now this hooking is all against my idea of how to play golf, which is the 'All air route,'because a pulled ball tends to come down quickly, not having been hit as near the bottom as possible. Here I have been struggling with a dilemma, hoping to be able to get an extra few yards from the tee with the hooked driver and still be able to 'hold up 'my seconds ; but I have come to the conclusion that I cannot do what I want often enough to make it pay. I make too many wide seconds, often dropping a shot or two by them, in the course of a round. Incidentally, there was another and very curious result of my standing a little more in front of the ball off the tee. Abe Mitchell, with whom I played a lot of golf last year, very often found himself aiming at the right-hand side of the fairway just because I was doing it. It is an extraordinary game.