Puttee

“ Given an opponent who is a really fine putter—Mr. Lassen or some other inhuman fiend—and till he has played two more while our ball lies stone dead we can never feel quite happy; the truly-struck putt comes on and on over that wonderfully smooth turf and flops into the hole with a sickening little thud, and there are we left gasping and robbed of our prey. ”

“ Battalion arrangements will be made for the reissue of one dry pair of socks to each man daily in the trenches.
(d) Puttees are never to be worn with long gum boots. Socks can be prevented from creeping down under the sole of the foot by fastening them to the trousers by means of safety pins. On no account will anything in the form of a garter be worn, as it impedes circulation of the blood. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then for years past it has been recommended that one of the best ways of managing the putting with these speedy balls is to have much loft on the putter, and so in that way do something to create the drag; but lately a change of opinion began to be made, and I am finding some of the best players using putters that are perfectly straight in the face, believing that by their agency they can putt more delicately and with a surer judgment of strength. ”

“ To be sure of the exact spot on the putter face which is invariably to come in contact with the ball, is, of course, essential to the acquirement of accuracy. If you play to hit clean, your putter must pass above the ground at varying heights, as it is impossible to note how much air there is between it and the turf. In the other way you feel your road. ”

“ If he has only one putter he will generally make some sort of a success of it if he can putt at all, and my private belief is that the putter itself has very little to do with the way in which a golfer putts. ”

“ Often enough no consideration is given to this point; it is not imagined that the shaft above the grip can serve any useful purpose. Yet it is constantly found that a putter cut down is not the same putter as it was before, not so good, and has not the same balance; and, again, many players must have been surprised sometimes, when doing some half-serious putting practice with a cleek, iron, or driving mashie, each club with its long shaft, to find out what wonderfully accurate work could be done in this way. ”

“ There are plenty of little ripples and ridges and hollows in the greens, though few bold slopes, and there is therefore scope for considerable nicety of putting; above all, there is the cheering knowledge that a putt has but to make a good start in life to ensure its turning neither to the right nor to the left and ending a blameless career at the bottom of the hole. ”

“ There is no rule, and there is no best way. Sometimes you see a player bend down and hold the putter right out in front of him with both wrists behind the shaft. This is an eccentricity, but if the player in question believes that he can putt better in this way than in any other, he is quite justified in adopting it, and I would be the last to tell him that he is wrong. ”

“ And now, after all our trials and misadventures, we are at last on the putting green, and it only remains to hole out. Putting is not particularly interesting, but you must remember that a stroke wasted at the hole counts just as much as a foozle from the tee. Carefulness and concentration are especially necessary, and although putters, like poets, are said to be born, not made, you should at least aim at going out in two strokes from any part of the green three times out of five. ”

“ I fear not, though one or two new putters are invented every week, and some of them are acclaimed as being the philosopher’s stone for which we have been looking. The golf world began to buzz as if its mainspring had got loose when Mr. Travis won the championship at Sandwich with that Schenectady putter—the most epoch-making putter of all. ”

“ I go even so far as to say that I believe that in a scientifically constructed putter the face should be made much broader than the face of the average putter, and that the weight, instead of being massed at or near the bottom of the putter, should be reversed, and put, if anything, nearer the top. The whole essence of true putting is that the ball shall be rolled up to the hole, and not at any portion of its journey played with drag, or as one is sometimes told to do, slid along the green. Any attempt whatever to put with drag, or by tapping the ball, must cause inaccuracy. ”

“ Then, is it the putt from the corner of the green across many miniature hills and dales with a winding course over which the ball must travel, often far away from the direct line, but which carries it at last delightfully to the opening into which it sinks just as its strength is ebbing away? We all know the thrilling ecstasy that comes from such a stroke as this, but it has always been helped by a little good luck, and I would not call it the master stroke. There are inferior players who are good putters. ”

“ The sure and certain way is to begin with the putter, which is easy and also valuable, because the experience of the best players is that the overlapping grip improves one's putting at least as much as it does one's driving. You may become accustomed enough to this way of gripping the putter on the first day to try it in the most important match or competition. ”

“ But the hope seems often to desert him at the end; confidence lapses. The short putt is the very last stroke in the play to that hole, and if it is missed there is no further opportunity for recovery. In this way it does seem sometimes that there is a little of the awful, the eternal, the infinite about that putt. The player is stricken with fear and awe. He knows it is an easy thing to do in the one proper way of doing it, but raging through his mind are hideous pictures of a dozen ways of missing. ”

“ Of this advanced party the eminent architect is a shining example, for he holds his putting cleek so far down, so near to the ironwork, that the shaft seems useless, and in addition to this he defies all teaching in putting by planting the heel of the club down on the green and holding the hands so low that the toe of the putter is cocked up, and with this toe he hits the ball, and, as it looks, he tops it. ”

“ Shallow faces and broad soles in putters have nothing whatever to recommend them, and there is very little doubt that golfers will, in due course, find this out, and will use a putter so made that it will carry the weight where it is most wanted, and that certainly is not at the base of the ball, for, unnecessary as it may seem to mention the fact, the put is the one stroke in golf which we always desire to keep as close to the green as possible. ”

“ I do not think that any putter should be built whose face is so narrow that at the moment of striking the ball properly with the putter the top edge of the putter is below the top of the ball. I am firmly of opinion that a putter which is so built that it delivers the main portion of its force below the centre of the ball's mass is absolutely defective. ”

“ While I am on the question of the construction of putters, I may say that I am inclined to think that all these putters which are made with heads such as the Schenectady, the ordinary wooden putter, or those putters with aluminium heads, are a mistake. The sole of the club is too broad, and to use such clubs as these is simply providing a greater chance of error. There is nothing which can be done with one of these large-headed putters which cannot be done as well, or better, by an ordinary metal putter. ”

“ But the fact is, as I have already indicated, that you can putt with anything if you hit the ball properly. Everything depends on that—hitting the ball properly—and no putter that was ever made will help you to hole out if you do not strike the ball exactly as it ought to be struck, while if you do so strike it, any putter will hole out for you. ”

“ The names of the chief sticks and implements employed in the sport are: driver, brassie, spoon, cleek, iron, mashie, niblick and putter. The driver, brassie and spoon are wooden-headed clubs, but the others have always iron heads. The driver is the club used for striking to the greatest distance when the ball is on the "tee," that is, on the little mound of sand on which it is placed at the commencement of each hole, so that more facility may be had in striking it. The putter is used on the putting—green, for short strokes round about the holes. ”

“ It is very nearly true, as Willie Park has so often said, that the man who can putt need fear nobody. Certainly a player can never be really great until he is nearly always certain to hole out in two putts on the green, and to get down a few in one. The approach stroke has been well played when the ball comes to rest within four or five feet of the pin, but what is the use of that unless the ball is to be putted out more often than not in one more stroke? ”

“ These are instances of what I call absurd and pettifogging low-attorney sort of rules. It would be far better that the rule about brushing the green lightly with the hand on the line of the putt were abolished altogether. If there are players who take a mean advantage and flatten down a lump when they should only be brushing away loose bits of dust or stones, such players had better be provided for if such a thing can be brought about without hardship to the sportsmanlike golfers. The benefit to the putter of brushing away dust or small stones is, in my opinion, infinitesimal. ”

“ But oftentimes, when the slope of the green is really considerable, and one experiences a sense of great risk and danger in using the putter at all, I strongly advise the use of the iron or mashie; indeed, I think most golfers chain themselves down too much to the idea that the putter, being the proper thing to putt with, no other club should be used on the green. There is no law to enforce the use of the putter, but even when the idea sometimes occurs to a player that it would be best to use his mashie on the green in particular circumstances, he usually rejects it as improper. ”

“ The ball is more or less poked along. When a man putts in this way he is putting largely by instinct, and even though he may generally putt well, his work on the greens cannot be thoroughly reliable. No putting is so good and consistently effective as is that which is done with a gentle even swing, which can be regulated to a nicety, and such putting is only possible when there is enough shaft left below the grip to swing with. ”

“ There is a good deal of billiards in putting, and the cut stroke on the green is essentially one which the billiard player will delight to practise. But I warn all those who are not already expert at cutting with the putter, to make themselves masters of the stroke in private practice before they attempt it in a match, because it is by no means easy to acquire. The chief difficulty that the golf student will encounter in attempting it will be to put the cut on as he desires, and at the same time to play the ball with the proper strength and keep on the proper line. ”

“ The history of every man’s golf is covered with metaphorical gravestones as the result of all the short putts he has missed. Every season the whole course, and the result of almost every event of importance, would be changed if one or other of the parties did not miss some of these apparently unmissable putts. One need go no farther back than last year’s Amateur Championship meeting. ”

“ Now in both these cases, when the greens are very slow and when they are extremely fast, the best putter for them is one with very considerable loft on the face, and it will often be found that there is nothing better than a fairly straight-faced iron, or an ordinary cleek, if it is big enough in the face to suit the player. With this club and its great dragging power, the effect seems to be practically to reduce the distance between the ball and the hole. ”

“ The philosophy of putting is simple, but is rarely appreciated. The search for the magic putter that will always pop the ball into the hole and leave the player nothing to do will go on for ever.
One other observation that I have to make on clubs in general is, that I think it is a mistake to have the shafts any longer than is absolutely necessary. Some golfers think that an iron or a cleek is just the right length for them when there are still a few inches of stick projecting inwards, towards their bodies, when they have made their grip. ”

“ Anybody can hole a putt of four or five feet when it doesn’t matter, and when there is no particular credit in doing it. It is when it does matter that you cannot do it. The hole is 41⁄4 in. wide, and the ball is about 11⁄2 in. in diameter. You may use anything from an umbrella to a lawn-roller in order to putt that little ball into that huge pit, and yet at that distance of three or four feet you cannot do it—that is, as often as you ought to do. Training and practice are no use. Do not beginners always do these putts well? That is because they do not know how difficult they are. ”