Harry Vardon

“ The man who has never stood upon the tee with a sturdy rival near him and driven a perfect ball, the hands having followed well through and finished nicely up against the head, while the little white speck in the distance, after skimming the earth for a time, now rises and soars upwards, clearing all obstacles, and seeming to revel in its freedom and speed until at last it dips gracefully back to earth again—I say that the man who has not done this thing has missed one of the joys of life. ”

“ I call it the master shot because, to accomplish it with any certainty and perfection, it is so difficult even to the experienced golfer, because it calls for the most absolute command over the club and every nerve and sinew of the body, and the courageous heart of the true sportsman whom no difficulty may daunt, and because, when properly done, it is a splendid thing to see, and for a certainty results in material gain to the man who played it. ”

“ Hole after hole has been done in bogey, and here and there the common enemy has been beaten by a stroke. Perhaps the result is a record round, and, so great is the enthusiasm for the game at this moment, that it is regarded as a great misfortune that the sun has set and there is no more light left for play. These are the times when the golfer's pulse beats strong, and he feels the remorse of the man with the misspent youth because he was grown up and his limbs were setting before ever he teed a ball. ”

“ Which is the master stroke in golf? That is an engaging question. Is it the perfect drive, with every limb, muscle, and organ of the body working in splendid harmony with the result of despatching the ball well beyond two hundred yards in a straight line from the tee? No, it is not that, for there are some thousands of players who can drive what is to all intents and purposes a perfect ball without any unusual effort. ”

“ I owe so much—everything—to the great game of golf, which I love very dearly, and which I believe is without a superior for deep human and sporting interest, that I shall feel very delighted if my "Complete Golfer" is found of any benefit to others who play or are about to play. I give my good wishes to every golfer, and express the hope to each that he may one day regard himself as complete. ”

“ In the matter of putters, of which there is an infinite variety and a new one invented almost every month, I believe in a man playing with just that kind that he has most confidence in and which he fancies suits him best. Whether it is a plain gun-metal instrument, a crooked-necked affair, a putting cleek, an ordinary aluminium, a wooden putter, or the latest American invention, it is all the same; and if it suits the man who uses it, then it is the best putter in the world for him, and the one with which he will hole out most frequently. ”

“ It is one of the glorious advantages of golf that all, the skilled and the unskilled, can revel in its fascinations and mysteries; but there is no golfing delight so splendid as that which is obtained from playing the perfect game, or one which nearly approaches it. The next best thing to it is playing what one knows to be an improving game, however bad, and the golfer whose play has been incorrectly established has not often even the knowledge that his game is improving. He declares more often than not that it gets worse, and one is frequently inclined to believe him. ”

“ When the golfer has brought himself to realise that, having played into a bunker, he has lost a stroke or the best part of one, and accepts the position without any further ado, he has gone a long way in the cultivation of the most desirable properties of mind and temperament with which any player of the game can be endowed. This man, recognising that his stroke is lost, when he goes up to his ball and studies the many difficulties of its situation, plays for the mere purpose of getting out again, and probably putting himself on the other side in that one stroke which was lost. ”

“ There are many varieties of every class of iron clubs, and their gradations of weight, of shape, of loft, and of all their other features, are delicate almost to the point of invisibility; but the old golfer who has an affection for a favourite club knows when another which he handles differs from it to the extent of a single point in these gradations. Some golfers have spent a lifetime in the search for a complete set of irons, each one of which was exactly its owner's ideal, and have died with their task still unaccomplished. ”

“ Much is given to golfers,—perhaps more than to the participators in any other sport,—but they are rarely satisfied. The wonderful fascination of golf is indicated in this eternal longing for more. Sometimes when I glance over the records of the history of the game, I feel a twinge of regret that it was not possible for me to play with, or even to see, such giants of the past as Allan Robertson, David Strath, the Dunns, Willie Campbell, Willie Park, senior, or the famous young Tom Morris. ”

“ But there is a bunker before the green, a bunker just beyond the green, and rushes to the right and left, so that the second shot has indeed to be a beauty for its maker to be wholly satisfied. This is the sort of hole that all good golfers best like to play, because they know that the good shots are certain of their reward, and that not merely the bad shots but the indifferent ones are met with just penalties every time. ”

“ I say that it is the ball struck by any club to which a big pull or slice is intentionally applied for the accomplishment of a specific purpose which could not be achieved in any other way, and nothing more exemplifies the curious waywardness of this game of ours than the fact that the stroke which is the confounding and torture of the beginner who does it constantly, he knows not how, but always to his detriment, should later on at times be the most coveted shot of all, and should then be the most difficult of accomplishment. ”

“ Moreover, I have not known what it is to be nervous even in a Championship round when my fate depended upon almost every stroke, and particularly on those at the last few holes. The feeling that was always uppermost in my mind was that I had everything to gain and nothing to lose. It is only when a man has everything to lose and nothing to gain that he should become uneasy about his game. ”

“ When the golfer's mind turns to reflections such as these, you may depend upon it that it has been one of those days when everything has gone right and nothing wrong, and the supreme joy of life has been experienced on the links. The little white ball has seemed possessed of a soul—a soul full of kindness and the desire for doing good. ”

“ Whenever we play against each other each of us does his level best to win, and gives no quarter with a single stroke, but it has been my invariable experience that when the match is over the loser is always the first to congratulate the winner, and to do it not as a mere matter of form but with the very utmost sincerity. ”

“ When I mention that useful iron-headed club that goes by the simple name of iron, I am conscious that I bring forward a subject that is dear to the hearts of many golfers who have not yet come to play with certainty with all their instruments. For the iron is often the golfer's favourite club, and it has won this place of affection in his mind because it has been found in the course of long experience that it plays him fewer tricks than any of the others—that it is more dependable. ”

“ Many golfers have a fondness for the brassy greater even than for the driver, and the brassy shot when well played certainly affords a greater sense of satisfaction than the drive—great as is the joy of a good drive—because one is conscious of having triumphed over difficulties. When the ball is lying very well when it has to be played through the green, the driver is naturally taken, but when the lie is very low, approaching even to a cuppy character, the brassy is called for so that an effort may be made to pick the ball up cleanly and despatch it to the full distance. ”

“ When a drive has been badly foozled, the readiest and most usual explanation is that the eye has been taken off the ball, and the wise old men who have been watching shake their heads solemnly, and utter that parrot-cry of the links, "Keep your eye on the ball." Certainly this is a good and necessary rule so far as it goes; but I do not believe that one drive in a hundred is missed because the eye has not been kept on the ball. On the other hand, I believe that one of the most fruitful causes of failure with the tee shot is the moving of the head. ”

“ No golfer plays well with a club in which he has completely lost confidence. It may not be the fault of the club at all; but there is the fact. On the other hand, the player is always possessed of a certain amount of hope when he takes a new implement in his hands. He has convinced himself beforehand, or at least ought to have done, that its points are just what he most admires, and that he is likely to do well with it. And so he probably will, even if it is only for a round or two. ”

“ It seems to me that this new four-ball game is a kind of mongrel mixture. It is played, I presume, because men feel that they would like to have a game of partners and yet are unwilling to sacrifice half the strokes of a round, as they do in the old game, and also because the man who is on his game desires all his power and brilliancy to count, and that they may not be interfered with by the possibly erratic procedure of his partner. But this is a selfish spirit, and quite opposed to that which should properly animate the men who play in combination. ”

“ If golfers will only bring themselves to ignore the wind, then it in turn will almost entirely ignore their straight ball. When you find your ball at rest the aforementioned forty or fifty yards from the point to which you desired to send it, make up your mind, however unpleasant it may be to do so, that the trouble is due to an unintentional pull or slice, and you may get what consolation you can from the fact that the slightest of these variations from the ordinary drive is seized upon with delight by any wind, and its features exaggerated to an enormous extent. ”

“ A man whose handicap is some distance removed from scratch, but who has played golf for many years, and thinks with good reason that he knows a fine course when he sees one, would nevertheless, in designing a new one, be led unconsciously to make holes which would be more or less suited to his own style of play. He might, indeed, in a most heroic spirit, place a bunker at a point which he knew would be more than usually dangerous for him, and he would feel a better and a braver man for this act ”

“ A golfer is often in an anxious state of mind when the day of a competition in which he wishes to do well arrives, and he is painfully conscious that he is completely off his play with one or other of his clubs, and has an abiding fear that it will bring him to grief. When he feels like this about the club, it will probably do so. Now the question is, whether at this crisis he shall take out a new one with which he is entirely unfamiliar and trust to luck with it, or put his faith once more in the instrument which of late has repeatedly spoilt his game. ”

“ I am a strong believer in having reserve drivers and brassies, even if one is only a very moderate golfer. Everybody knows what it is to suffer torture during the period when one is said to be "off his drive," and I think there is no remedy for this disease like a change of clubs. There may be nothing whatever the matter with the club you have been playing with, and which at one time gave you so much delight, but which now seems so utterly incapable of despatching a single good ball despite all the drastic alterations which you make in your methods. ”

“ Therefore, when a golfer says, as misguided golfers sometimes do, that he cannot play with the cleek, that he gets equal or superior results with other clubs, and that therefore he has abandoned it to permanent seclusion in the locker, you may shake your head at him, for he is only deceiving himself. Like the wares of boastful advertisers, there is no other which is "just as good," and if a golfer finds that he can do no business with his cleek, the sooner he learns to do it the better will it be for his game. ”

“ But I am far from believing that, as is so often said, a player can learn next to nothing from a book. If he goes about his golf in the proper manner he can learn very much indeed. The services of a competent tutor will be as necessary to him as ever, and I must not be understood to suggest that this work can to any extent take the place of that compulsory and most invaluable tuition. On the other hand, it is next to impossible for a tutor to tell a pupil on the links everything about any particular stroke while he is playing it, and if he could it would not be remembered. ”

“ At the end of this chapter I will make the simple remark, that you can pay a golfer no higher compliment than to say that he is a good foursome player, for such a one must not only be a good golfer and a steady one, but a man of the serenest and even most delightful temperament. You must always feel that you could not play in the company of such a man too often, either with him or against him. ”

“ In the upward movement of the club the body must pivot from the waist alone, and there must be no swaying, not even to the extent of an inch. When the player sways in his drive the stroke he makes is a body stroke pure and simple. The body is trying to do the work the arms should do, and in these circumstances it is impossible to get so much power into the stroke as if it were properly made, while once more the old enemies, the slice and the pull, will come out from their hiding-places with their mocking grin at the unhappy golfer. ”