I have talked a great deal about practising when we are out of form, because that, alas ! is the most common kind. There is also, as I said, the practice of shots in which we know ourselves to be habitually weak, the practice that looks further ahead. Advice as to the when, the where, and the how applies in either case. In this second case the chief question is the what. It is an individual question, since each of us must best know his own besetting weakness. But nearly all of us, if we are quite honest, know that there is one constantly weak joint in our harness, and that is the half-shot or, as I called it, the betwixt and between shot with iron clubs. Practice spent upon that can never be wasted. I think some authorities have been almost too fierce about this shot. They have poured too much contempt on those who play something like a full shot with a lofted iron, or sometimes indeed on those who swing an iron at all. People who are not gifted with strength of wrist and forearm must sometimes resort to a full shot with a lofted club, and, discreetly used, it is an extremely valuable one. But if we have no half-shot there will be days when we shall find ourselves in sad difficulties. There will be a gap in our scheme of approaching, a distance that is just too long for our pitching shot, too short for our full or comparatively full shot. If we are lucky we may never get a stroke of that particular distance to play, but on other days we shall get it continually. We may try to avoid it as hard as we can; just as, if we are weak on our back hand at lawn-tennis, we run frantically round to make a forehand stroke of it. Be sure, however, that we cannot always escape. On a windy day especially, when our full mashie shots are blown this way and that, we cannot possibly escape. So we must learn to cover that distance properly.

It is not easy. Great men have laid it down that it is always easier to play a half-shot with a strong club than a full shot with a weaker one. This, speaking on behalf of those who are not great, I flatly deny. It is very difficult to learn to time a half-shot, mainly I think because we have no instinctive feeling to guide us as to the right place at which to stop the club on the way up. Nothing but hard work and trying different methods will teach us. It is comforting to know that champions have found it hard work. Listen to Mr. Hilton, than whom no player has ever had greater command over his clubs: 'I could play the full shot,'he says, 'and I could play the wrist shot with confidence; but whenever I was presented with the problem of playing a shot which required more than a wrist shot, and something less than a full blow, I felt all at sea. ... I spent many disheartening and tedious hours playing shot after shot of a description which I simply loathed, and apparently without any beneficial result, as immediately I was called upon to play a particular shot in a match, I approached it without the slightest degree of confidence.' However, the confidence came at last and he mastered the stroke, 'which,'as he says, 'I have since realised, represents all the difference between being a first-class player and a second-class player.' Here is a good example to us all, and we must remember that even when we have practically mastered the shot in practising, it may betray us in a game. There is nothing for it, then, but still more practice and, further, a determination to play the right shot in a match even though it cost us some half-crowns. If we go on metaphorically running round our back-handers, we may win this or that game, but our definite place as players will be lower than it ought to be or might be.

A great many golfers say that they 'cannot play a running-up shot' much as they might say that they cannot drink champagne, regretting the circumstance but attributing it to some constitutional infirmity which is no fault of theirs. Here again is scope for practice with iron clubs, and another shot to be cultivated in odd half-hours is the little chip from just off the edge of the green. See how well the professionals play this shot : how cleanly and crisply, and especially how hard they hit the ball. The method of most amateurs looks by comparison ragged and half-hearted.

It takes a man of strong character to practise niblick shots, but it is worth doing. There is nothing that keeps us out of bunkers so surely as a measure of confidence in our niblick play. It is the terror of not being able to get out that puts us in. And there is so much more that we might practise beyond the 'common thud,'of which the sole object is to get back on to the course, valuable though that is. Take just as an example the clean-lying ball in sand close to the hole. We may often get much nearer to the hole by playing the 'explosive shot.' It stops the ball dead, whereas the ball taken clean may run far past the hole. But we connect that shot in our minds with a bad lie in a bunker. The mere fact of having a good one frightens us out of playing it, or makes us do so half-heartedly and so disastrously. It would not have done so if we had practised the shot. I once knew an amateur coach who, since there was no professional at this particular course, would sometimes consent to set beginners on the right road. His invariable habit was to lead them to a sandy ditch full of stones and make them play niblick shots out of it, for he said in effect, 'You will be sure to get into it, and had better learn to get out again.' His method was likely to implant a lasting distaste for the whole game of golf, but those pupils who survived so drastic a novitiate may since have had cause to bless him.

Though I have suggested several shots with iron clubs as suitable to the earnest student, that is not to say that he cannot increase his repertory of wooden-club shots. The whole art of wooden-club play does not consist in hitting the ball 'bloomin' hard, bloomin' high, and bloomin' often.' Indeed there is no end to its fascinating mysteries. Any one who doubts this had better go out and watch Mr. Hilton in a wind, especially with his spoon.

Practice: its Pains and Pleasures 119

He will come back thinking that there is enough that he does not know to keep him practising for the rest of his natural life.

Putting is so much an art of itself that I am keeping a few words on putting practice to the end. As to all the other practising hitherto mentioned, there is one final and golden rule : Finish up with a good one. To miss forty-nine shots and then hit the fiftieth is more likely to send the golfer home with mind at ease than is the exact converse. He must end 'with a good taste in his mouth.' I said this was a final rule for his guidance, but there is yet a corollary to it. When he gets home let him put his clubs firmly away without so much as a single waggle. Do not let him gloat over his cure, nor enter into the medical details to his family-nor give them a practical demonstration of 'what was wrong.' If he does, the same thing or something else will probably be wrong again next day, and it will serve him right.