Now it is absolutely incontestable that this principle is scientifically more accurate and will deliver a stronger blow than the golf clubs which are at present used. James Braid in 1901 said of this putter,:

I consider this putter very good for direction, as, the shaft being practically centred, you get the effect of the driver headed putters with inserted shafts, without losing the advantages which the ordinary putter head possesses over the large headed clubs. The principle, from a scientific point of view, is certainly right, and I have no doubt that any player who suffers from bad direction will find this a valuable club.

In passing, I may draw attention to the fact that James Braid himself considers that the ordinary putter possesses advantages over the large headed clubs, and I think myself that there is very little doubt that this is so for the vast majority of golfers. Arnaud Massy, in his recent book Le Golf, says of my clubs: "Certes, au point de vue scientifique, cette theorie est inatta-quable." Notwithstanding the opinion of three such men as Vardon, Braid, and Massy on a matter of practical golf like this, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews has declared that my clubs are illegal on their links, but in response to questions which they have been asked with regard to this matter they assert that the club is barred only on the links of the Royal and Ancient Club !

It seems a very great pity that this famous Club should have taken this action with the Schenectady and the Vaile, for it has undoubtedly led, as I pointed out in The Contemporary Review for August 1910, would be the case, to the passing of the great Club as a world power in golf. It is impossible for any club or body of persons to stand in the way of the progress of a great game such as golf, and anybody or any club endeavouring to do so must inevitably, as I clearly indicated at the time, pay the penalty for doing so.

I have very little doubt that in the future, and at a by no means distant date, golf will be played with clubs constructed on an infinitely more scientific principle than those which are now used. It is quite plain to anyone who gives the matter a little thought that the longer the head of the club the greater must be the inaccuracy in the stroke. It stands to reason that the inertia at the toe of the club is greater than at the heel, and every fraction of an inch which one goes farther from the shaft must increase the inertia in the head of the club. It follows quite naturally that if one is using a whippy shaft, the tendency must be for the head of the club, especially if it is at all long, to exert a very considerable amount of torsional or twisting strain on the shaft of the club in the downward swing. It has been asserted that this torsional strain, by reason of the recovery of the shaft at the moment of impact, adds something to the force of the drive in golf, but this is quite an error, as at the moment of impact the club is travelling at its fastest. It follows, therefore, that if there is any inertia in the toe of the club, it will be very apparent at the time when the club is travelling at its fastest, and the result is that the torsional strain, instead of providing any beneficial spring at the moment of impact, only tends to lay back the face of the club and contribute materially towards slicing. It will, therefore, be seen that it is very inadvisable to have a long head when one is using a whippy shaft.

I may, perhaps, illustrate this question of keeping the impact in a line with the striking implement by instancing the sword cut. Most people have seen at military tournaments the competition known as lemon-cutting. In this event a mounted man gallops past a certain number of lemons suspended on strings, and as he passes he endeavours to sever them with his sword. It will be seen that at the moment when his sword enters the lemons his forearm and the sword are, in both cuts, in the same plane, and it seems so obvious as to need no emphasising that if the line of his blade were even an inch or two off the line of his forearm there would be introduced into his stroke a very great degree of inaccuracy, but although this may be so obvious, it is practically what we are doing every day in golf.

If the golf club were made in such a manner that the point of impact was absolutely in a line with the forearms at the moment of impact, tradition, instead of being outraged, would really be honoured. Not long ago a friend of mine came to me and showed me an old driver, saying, "I cannot understand how it is, but I can always get twenty or thirty yards farther with this driver than I can with any other." I took the club and ran my eye down the shaft. I noticed at once that it was warped considerably so that it threw the shaft inwards in such a manner that it resembled very much the shaft of an old St. Andrews putter - in other words, it put the golfer's hands and forearms in a line with the shaft of his club and the shaft of his club in a line with the point of impact at the moment the stroke was played. I pointed out to him that his club was, in effect, a centre-shafted club, and that this was the reason why he was getting a longer and, as he stated, a straighter ball with this club than with any other club he used.

While I am on this question of the construction of clubs, I may as well state that under the recent ruling of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club there is not a legal golf club in use in England to-day, for one of the essentials of a legal club now is that the head must be all on one side of the shaft of the club. Passing by, as too technical an objection, the question as to whether a circular object may be said to have a side, we are confronted with the fact that many of the best-known clubs have the shaft inserted in the head. All the socketed clubs technically are illegal, because the head is certainly not all on one side of the shaft. Many cleeks are illegal because the shaft goes through the socket and right through the heel of the club to the sole thereof, so that a considerable portion of the head of the club is on the hither side of the shaft, and every ordinary golf club is so constructed that it is more correct to say that the head of the club, instead of being all on one side of the shaft, is either at the foot of the shaft, or at least that there is, without any doubt, a considerable portion of the head which goes beyond the one side of the club whereon the head is supposed to be.