There are one or two points in this statement which are of very great importance. Vardon says: "For the application of cut turn the toe slightly outwards and away from the hole, and see that the face of the club is kept to this angle all the way through the stroke." This is absolutely unsound golf, for Vardon is advising his reader to play the put with the toe of the putter slightly outwards and away from the hole. It stands to reason that following this advice will put the face of the club in such a position that at the moment of impact it will be impossible for it to be at a right angle to the intended line of run to the hole, and this rule is, for all purposes of practical golf, invariable. It is obvious that coming on to the ball in the manner suggested must tend to push it away to the right - that is to say, it would have a strong tendency to go away to the right from the very moment of impact, which is not what is generally wanted in a good put; also playing the put in this manner tends quite naturally to decrease the amount of cut put on it. The idea that cut mashie shots and cut puts are played in this manner has arisen from the fact that very frequently the golfer addresses the ball with the toe of his club laid back a little, but by the time he has come on to the ball again he has corrected this. In many cases, if it were not for laying the toe of the club back a little in this manner, golfers would be inclined, although as a matter of strict and accurate golf they should not be, to drag the ball across towards the left of the hole.

Vardon says: "Swing just a trifle away from the straight line outwards, and the moment you come back on to the ball draw the club sharply across it." Now here again we see this outstanding error of practically every man who ever put pen to paper to write about golf, which is that in producing the cut, whether it be in a put or a sliced drive, something is done intentionally to the ball during the period in which the ball and the club are in contact. This is absolutely wrong. I have explained before that the cut put, and indeed all cut strokes at golf, are produced by the club swinging across the intended line of flight or run at the moment of impact, and the amount of cut depends entirely upon the angle and the speed at which the club head is travelling across the intended line of flight or run. It is obvious that the amount of cut must also, to a certain extent, depend on the amount of loft of the club, for the greater the loft of the club the greater assistance will the golfer who is applying the cut obtain from the weight of the ball.

Vardon goes on to say: "It is evident that this movement, when properly executed, will give to the ball a rotary motion, which on a perfectly level green would tend to make it run slightly off to the right of the straight line along which it was aimed "; but as I have already shown, the unfortunate part of it is that a put so played would not go down the straight line which every golfer desires that his put shall go on; nor indeed on anything like it.

Also it is a delusion that it is possible with any of the ordinary putters to obtain a cut of a sufficiently pronounced degree to remain on the ball, especially on the bramble balls, for any appreciable distance. Vardon supposes a case of a steep but even slope all the way from the ball to the hole, and he gives instructions as to how to put across this slope with cut so as to hold the ball up against the slope. He says:

But we may borrow from the slope in another way than by running straight up it and straight down again. If we put cut on the ball, it will of itself be fighting against the hill the whole way, and though if the angle is at all pronounced it may not be able to contend against it without any extra borrow, much less will be required than in the case of the simple putt up the hill and down again.

In the first place, I may remark that we do not generally borrow from a slope "by running straight up it and straight down again." The path of the ball is generally, almost from the time it is hit, a curve, and a gradual curve, in which one sees to it that the ball is at its farthest from the straight line to the hole somewhere about midway to the hole. But this idea of putting cut on the ball with a putter, which is sufficient to hold the ball up against the hill for any appreciable distance, is practically a delusion. I can easily understand that if Vardon plays the cut put as he himself directs it to be played, that he thinks that cut administered to a ball by an ordinary putter may have a very great effect in holding the ball up against the side of a hill for a considerable distance, but this really is not so. Putting, however, as Vardon instructs one to put for obtaining cut, would in itself punch the ball up against the slope of the hill, and I can easily believe that anybody who plays the put like this, thinking that he is obtaining cut by so doing, will be under the impression that cut is a very useful thing for holding the ball up against the slope in this manner, whereas he is in effect simply punching the ball up against the slope - in other words, he is playing a put, which if the green were perfectly level, would be yards off his line to the hole and to the right of it. Vardon goes on to say:

Now it must be borne in mind that it is a purely artificial force, as it were, that keeps the ball from running down the slope, and as soon as the run on the ball is being exhausted and the spin at the same time, the tendency will be, not for the ball to run gradually down the slope - as it did in the case of the simple putt without cut - but to surrender to it completely and run almost straight down.

There is a fundamental error here, for Vardon states that practically the spin on the put and the run on the ball will be exhausted at the same time, but it is an utter impossibility to calculate with any exactness whatever as to what happens in such a case. Vardon knows no more about it than any other golfer, and all that any golfer knows about this is extremely little, so that to advise anyone to attempt to hold his ball up against a slope by the application of cut with any ordinary putter, particularly a broad-soled putter, is to invite him to play his shot blindfolded.