THE TRAGEDIES OF THE SHORT PUTT, AND A CONTRAST BETWEEN CHILDREN AND
CHAMPIONS, WITH THE VARIED COUNSEL OF THE WISEST MEN.
The case of an earth so well explored by golfing travellers having been
considered as the third of the wonders of the sphere, and the
peculiarity of St. Andrews as the fourth, there is a clear suggestion as
to which is the next or fifth wonder of the series. Inevitably one
recalls the tearful situation of the mighty hunter in a story which is
passed in company as fact. He declared he had encountered all the
manifold perils of the jungle, had tracked the huge elephant to its
retreat, and had stood eye to eye with the man-eating tiger. It is
believed that he had done all these things. Then he added, "And never
once have I trembled until I came to a short putt." For me one of the
most remarkable things I have seen in golf was at an Open Championship
meeting at St. Andrews when, watching and musing by the side of the
eighteenth green, I saw four of the greatest players of this or any
other time come up to it in the competition one by one and have putts of
less than eighteen inches at that hole. Three of the four missed! In the
old days, at all events, when the greens were not quite as they are now,
but became very glassy and slippery with much wind and constant play
upon them, I believe there were more short putts missed on the old
course at St. Andrews than on any other two courses in the world, and
the task of holing the little stupids on that home green was a most
tormenting ordeal.
So, with the broken-hearted explorer, and the tragedy of St. Andrews,
there is pointed to us for the next wonder of the game the missing of
the short putt. And I do believe, and so must others, that the missing
of such a short putt as it seems humanly impossible for any man, having
the control of his limbs and being _compos mentis_, to miss is one of
the most remarkable features of any game, and one that would be
completely and absolutely inexplicable did it not in itself offer a most
splendid illustration of the full effect of strain of mind on physical
action, of the pressure of great responsibility on an over-anxious man.
It embraces nearly the whole psychology of golf. The short putt largely
explains the game, and it is testimony to the soundness of this view,
and the rightful selection of this as a permanent wonder, that the
general public would never believe the truth as we know it, that it is
possible for the greatest players with what is to them, for the time
being, almost as much as their lives depending on it, to miss putts so
little that no walking baby properly fed would miss. The general public,
with its vast stores of common sense, would not believe the fact; it
would ridicule it and treat the whole suggestion with contempt, and it
might in a sense be right; but then the general public has not been
fighting its way round a golf course against another and very truculent
general public, driving, playing seconds and thirds, getting bunkered
and recovering, and encountering all manner of difficulties and dangers,
and then had its fate for the day depending on a short putt at the
eighteenth green! By psychology of the game, as just mentioned, we mean,
of course, the way in which the mind and the emotions act and react upon
the physical system and its capacity, how doubts and fears are
engendered, and things from not seeming what they are become really
different, so far as the attitude of the player to them is concerned.
Thus, as has been well said, a putt of ten inches on the first green is,
as one might feel, a putt of thirty inches--though still in fact of the
same length--when that green is not the first but the thirty-seventh,
and that on which a long-drawn-out match is being finished.
One summer's day, on a course in France, a little party of us were
discussing the slow and sure methods of certain Americans then in
Europe--if, really, they were quite so sure as they were slow. Indeed
they hustled not. The point was put forward by one of us that there is a
moment in waiting when inspiration and confidence come together, or at
least come then as well as ever they can or will, and that if the
hesitation is prolonged beyond that moment, the result is inevitably
loss of faith, increasing doubt and timidity, and a distorted view of
the situation arising from fear of fate. Half the difficulties of golf
are due to the fact that the player has an abundance of time to think
about what he is engaged to do and how it should be done. In that time
hopes and fears and many emotions race through his mind, and tasks which
were originally simple become every moment harder. In no other game has
the player such ample leisure in which to think, to be careful, to be
exact, and to decide upon the proper action, and thus responsibility is
heaped upon him for what he does as it is in no other sport or
recreation. He is oppressed with a mighty burden. That which he does he
is entirely responsible for, and it can never be undone. It follows that
this game has an extensive and peculiar psychology such as is possessed
by no other. I shall proceed to tell a little story, dramatic in its
circumstances, abounding in significance. It embraces the meanings and
mysteries of golf.
* * * * *
The strange case of Sir Archibald Strand is one that caused much excited
attention among the members of the golf community in general some months
ago, and it is still discussed in the club-houses. Sir Archibald Strand,
Bart., is a fair example of the thorough, enthusiastic, middle-aged
player, who treats golf as something rather more than a game, which is
as it should be. He is one of tolerably equable temperament, a good
sportsman, and a man of strong character and physique, who did a long
term of military service in India. Nowadays he spends an appreciable
portion of his time in golfing, and a fair part of the remainder in
contemplating the enduring mysteries and problems of the links. The game
worries him exceedingly, occasionally it leads him to unhappiness, but,
on the whole, he feels he likes it. He is a member of several London
clubs, including Sunningdale, Walton Heath, Mid-Surrey, Coombe Hill, and
Woking, and of his seaside clubs those he most frequents are the Royal
St. George's at Sandwich, and Rye. His handicap is 5, and generally he
is what we consider and call a good reliable 5.
He and his opponent, to whom, as a matter of discretion and confidence,
we must refer as Mr. A., had just ended their match at Mid-Surrey one
pleasant day, and Sir Archibald was trying his last putt over again as
golfers often do. It was a putt of two feet. He had missed it before;
but now, of course, he rolled the ball in every time. A question arose
about circumstances altering cases, as they so commonly do in golf, and
of responsibility weighing heavily on the mind that hesitates; and Sir
Archibald declared that nobody in good health could be such a fool as to
miss a two-feet putt like that, if he really examined the line
thoroughly, and took the proper pains. Just then the open champion of
the period was passing by the green, and they called him up and asked
his views upon the missing of two-feet putts. Taylor denied that a man
was a fool for missing them. He mentioned the psychology of the
business, and very forcibly argued that a two-feet putt was a very
difficult thing, that the more important it was the more difficult it
became, and that the longer one thought about it the more impossible did
it seem to hole it. "Ah!" said he, with the solemn countenance he
assumes when discussing the terrors of this game, and the deep emphasis
he makes when he admits the difficulties it creates for him, "Ah!" he
murmured, "if I had never missed any putts of one foot, let alone the
putts of two! I tell you, sir, the two-feet putt, when it has to be
done--mind you when it has got to be done--is one of the most difficult
things in the world to do, and never mind the fact that your babies can
do it all the time! Take that from me, sir!" This was a touch of the
real Taylor, the true philosopher, one who knows the game.
Mr. A., who is sometimes aggressive in manner, brought the matter in
discussion to a pretty point at once. "Look here, Strand," said he, "I
will tell you what I will do. I will place this ball here, so, exactly
two feet from the hole, and I will give you a fortnight, but not less
than a fortnight, to hole that putt. You are not to practise it here at
this hole on this green in the meantime; but you may place the ball in
position if you like, and look at it. And a fortnight to-day, at ten
o'clock in the morning, you must make the putt, and I will bet you
fourteen guineas, being a guinea a day for waiting, that you do not hole
it. We will have the position of the hole properly marked, so that a
fortnight hence it shall be in the same place."
The champion said he would tell Lees, the greenkeeper, and that should
be done. Strand, with a laugh, accepted the wager, and the matter was
settled.
The events that followed were curious. In the club-house there was then
little disposition to attend to the accounts of the proceedings that
were furnished by both parties. The men who had finished rounds were too
much occupied with their own troubles or joys.
At his club in town that evening, Sir Archibald, over dinner, related
the circumstances of the wager to a few friends, with an appearance of
considerable satisfaction with himself, and seemed a little surprised
that the other members of the party did not at once approve of his
proceeding as sound and businesslike.
"Of course, you know, Strand, my good man," said Mr. Ezekiel Martin, a
successful stockbroker, "these putts are missed sometimes, and I don't
suppose it makes it any easier for you by waiting a fortnight. It's like
carrying over in the House till one is a very tired bull."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Sir Archibald, "I could go out now and hole that
putt nineteen times out of twenty in the dark!"
"I believe you could," answered Martin, "but doing it in the dark, when
you cannot see the hole and realise all the imaginary difficulties, is
very different from doing it in broad daylight; and putting now, on the
spur of the moment, as it were, is very different from putting when you
have a whole fortnight to think about what you are going to do."
"I don't see it," replied Sir Archibald, yet he began to feel a little
uneasy. On returning home that night, instead of going to bed at once he
went into his study, laid a tumbler on its side on the carpet, and
putted from a measured two feet for about half an hour. He holed most
of them, and tumbled into bed feeling that Martin had been "pulling his
leg," as people say. In the morning he engaged a gardener to smooth down
a piece of his lawn, planting in a little putting-green turf, and he had
a hole made in it, and a circle with two feet radius drawn round the
hole, so that he could putt from every point. When this work was done,
he spent an hour in practising there, and succeeded well. He only missed
about one in ten. He tried seven different putters, with approximately
equal results. In the afternoon he went down to Mid-Surrey, played a
match, and lost it by missing a short putt at the home hole. After tea,
he went out on to the eighteenth green, found the spot where the hole
was the day before, examined it carefully, and saw that there were
slight differences in the texture of the grass round about, and that
there was a little depression to the left side. He had not noticed this
before. However, said he to himself, it would be easy to make allowances
for these things, but he began now to doubt whether thirteen days ahead
he would use his wry-necked putting cleek or bolt the putt with an
aluminium putter. Where there are troubles of that kind it is often
better to make short work of the putt by the bolting way, and have an
end of it. At home that evening he did more putting practice on the
carpet, and did not hole them quite so well. Lady Strand, who
understands her husband thoroughly, and is the sweetest, gentlest
sympathiser, coaxed him to telling her the trouble, for she saw that one
existed. With perfect wisdom she suggested that he should wipe the
fourteen guineas from the current account as already lost, and face the
task as one who had all to gain and nothing to lose. Of course, her
husband said, it was not the money, but the frightful jackass he would
look if he missed the putt.
He went to his club in town the next day instead of going to golf, and
took with him a book containing a chapter on putting, by Willie Park. He
stretched himself out on a Chesterfield in a corner of the library, and
gazed at two spots on the carpet which he had measured as being two feet
from each other. Eventually, he decided that that was not good for him,
since equal distances in furnished rooms, as is well known, look longer
than they look outside. He lunched with a few friends, and brought up
the subject again.
"Give him the money and have done with it, Strand. You are sure to
lose!" said the brutish Martin.
"I wish I had not to wait for a fortnight," murmured Strand.
"Ah! He knew! The other man knew!" rejoined Martin. "He knows the game
of golf! What I cannot understand is why he did not give you a year and
make it 365 guineas. You would have sold out in six weeks at L200!"
Sir Archibald wrote a letter to Mr. A. that evening, intimating that he
would probably have to leave town the week after the next. He hinted
that it might be convenient if they got their wager out of the way
beforehand, and if he putted a week from then. Mr. A. replied that he
was sorry it would not be convenient for him to attend then, and that
the signed terms of the contract had better be abided by.
Sir Archibald bought two new putters on the following day, and in the
afternoon he had Taylor out for an hour, and they went practising on the
putting lawn just outside the garden gate. Sir Archibald was putting
very well then; but he insisted that it would be a good thing to change
the ball he was using, which was rather lively. After he had done with
Taylor, he went to look at the place on the eighteenth green where he
would have to putt, and it seemed that the coarse grass had fattened up
considerably with the rain that had fallen, and that the sand below it
was distinctly gritty. It began to seem that he would have to run the
ball in at the right side of the hole. He asked Lees some questions
about the grasses on that green, and was sorry he could not take a
little Mid-Surrey turf home with him. He was feeling a little tired when
he reached his home that night, and as it was Thursday he suggested to
Lady Strand that they should go to Folkestone for the week-end, and not
bother at all about golf, which they did accordingly. He found it
delightful to linger on the leas and not be worried with the game.
This kind of thing continued and became worse and worse again during the
days that followed. There was practice, thought, and purchase
continually, and unfortunately the proportion of missed putts at two
feet, both on the carpet, on the practice lawn, and on the greens at
Mid-Surrey, Coombe Hill, and Woking, began to increase. At putts of
three feet, four, and five, Sir Archibald was marvellous, and, of
course, he never missed the very little ones; but the two-feet putts
bothered him all the time. He attributed it to his liver; and he was
certainly looking worn. Matters were not improved by such inconsiderate
remarks as were made by Martin, Evans, and others, whenever he had a
two-feet putt to do, such as "Now, Strand, that's just your distance!"
It was only a joke; but in the circumstances it was not perhaps in good
taste.
On the evening of the twelfth day Strand, after deliberation, wrote a
letter to A. in which he said he feared he would not be able to go down
to the course at the appointed time, and intimated that, according to
the terms of the wager, he would hand over the fourteen guineas to him
when next they met. Before posting this letter he went and did a little
practice in the dusk on the lawn outside the house. He seemed to get
them down with some confidence on this occasion, and Lady S., watching
him, called out cheerily, "Silly boy! as if you could really miss! Now
what shall I buy with the fourteen guineas?"
So Strand tore up the letter and went to bed for rest.
On the night before the appointed day he slept badly. He was putting in
his mind until three o'clock in the morning. Then he rose, went in his
pyjamas into the study, made a line on the top of his aluminium putter
indicating the striking point, and went back to bed, but did not sleep.
For some time he tried an imaginary humming of the "Jewel Song" from
_Faust_, and repeated a few lines from Scott's "Lady of the Lake"--old
dodges of his for assisting distraction and sleep--but they did not
serve, nor did a fixed vision of millions of balls falling in an endless
stream from the mouth of a pump and disappearing instantly through a
golf hole in the ground.
At five-thirty he rose again and took his bath. He hesitated as to what
golfing suit he should wear. Finally, for the sake of complete ease, and
that there should be nothing to attract his eye from the ball, he put on
some dark-blue flannels.
He looked at his breakfast, pecked at a sole, and at nine-fifteen,
feeling distinctly unwell, he took a taxi for the course. He had one
great consolation upholding him. At five minutes past ten it would all
be over. He felt that he knew how glad a condemned criminal must be that
at five minutes past eight on a certain morning--or a minute or two
earlier with a little luck--a black flag would be hoisted on the prison
pole.
At seven minutes to ten he drank a large brandy and soda and went out to
the eighteenth green. Mr. A. and a few others were there to see the
business properly carried out. Taylor placed the ball exactly two feet
from the hole, which was cut in the proper place. He had his watch in
his hand.
Sir Archibald bent down and examined the putt with great care. He
essayed to pick up what seemed to be a "loose impediment" on his line,
but saw that it was not loose. The putt seemed very difficult now, and
he wished he had brought his plain putting cleek out with him, but it
was too late.
At ten o'clock exactly, Taylor said, "Now, Sir Archibald, will you
kindly putt?"
Sir Archibald Strand looked like a man who had been hunted down. He made
one swift glance around him, but saw no escape, so he pulled himself
together, smiled a little sadly, and said to himself, "Don't be a fool,
Archie!" Then he faced the putter to the ball; the club was trembling
slightly. He swung it back much too far, checked it in the return swing,
and came on to the ball in a nervous, stupid sort of way, doing little
more than touch it. The ball took a line to the right of the hole, and
did not run more than fourteen inches.
You may have thought that Sir Archibald used unfortunate words and was
dismayed. He did not. A look of established happiness and placid
contentment spread upon his countenance, as a streak of sunlight might
flash across a plain. "Ha!" he sighed in relief. He took from his pocket
a cheque for fourteen guineas already made out, and handed it to Mr. A.,
and then joyfully exclaimed: "Thank heaven, it is finished! Now, my
friends, we will honour this unusual occasion in a suitable manner at
your convenience, and this afternoon I leave for Sandwich for a week of
golf. And no letters are being forwarded."
* * * * *
Let us now enter consideration of this matter in a proper frame of mind,
seriously and not looking contemptuously upon the problem of holing
even the very shortest of putts as no problem at all after the affected
manner of the inexperienced and uninformed general public. Let us
approach it cautiously and in an analytical spirit. We should take the
evidence of expert witnesses upon happenings in their careers, in our
endeavour to discover the real truth. We have already remarked upon the
case of the hunter who shot tigers and cringed at putts, and of the
great champions who all missed them on the eighteenth green at St.
Andrews, when they were playing for nothing less than the championship.
We have also contemplated the circumstances of the distressed baronet
who was given a fortnight in which to hole a two-feet putt, suffered
intolerable agonies during the period, and was only restored to
happiness when he had failed at the stroke. Now let us pay regard to the
experience of a little child only six years old, who was completely
successful at many putts in succession, at distances of from one to six
feet, all the most perilous situations. This remarkable demonstration
was witnessed by the proud parents, by a great professional, and by
myself.
The child is a boy, and not, as has been stated, a winsome little girl.
There is, if I may say it without offence, nothing remarkable about his
parents. They are excellent kindly-mannered people, of tolerable
middle-class education, simple in their manner of life, and of no
pronounced tastes in any direction. The father is in a large timber
business in the Midlands, and has probably an income of about six
hundred pounds a year. His handicap is 14. He is not a very keen golfer,
and seems to spend a fair amount of his time in his garden. A total
abstainer, he smokes little, and has no strong tastes in art and
literature; but he once told me that in addition to much Scott and a
sufficiency of Dickens he had read one of my books on golf. That is the
father. As to the mother, she is just one who might be called in the
north a nice little body. She is a thoroughly good housewife,
domesticated, affectionate, and if she does not play golf she
sympathises with it. These are people who are tolerably satisfied with
their state. They live in a pleasant house, employ two maidservants, and
have no motor-car. Here, surely, is nothing to suggest the creation of
genius. Yet they are the parents of this remarkable child who did, with
no hesitation, with confidence, certainty, and frequency, what the
mighty hunter, the champions, the bold but misguided baronet, and you
and I have failed to accomplish.
There is a man of wit and wisdom, Andrew Kirkaldy, who, when you inquire
of him what is the most difficult thing in golf, responds with no
hesitation that it is to hole "a wee bit divvle of a putt that long!"
and so saying he will hold his hands four feet apart. Occasionally he
may vary the phraseology, not to its advantage, but the meaning and
effect remain the same. Andrew is solid on four feet. But authorities
differ a little in this matter of measurement. Some will reduce the
distance to thirty inches; others have it that the yard putt is the most
trying; I have heard eighteen inches put forward. But it all amounts to
much the same thing, that what looks ridiculously easy is very, very
difficult. Now this tender little child, who knew nothing of the fears
and dangers of this awful game, placed the ball at a distance of two
feet from the hole on a curly and slippery green, and with a sublime
aplomb hit it straight to the middle of the hole--the first putt of his
life and a good one. Then he putted from a yard and holed it again, then
from Kirkaldy's distance and played the stroke just as surely and
successfully, and then repeated them many times, never faltering, never
failing. We who watched were a trifle sad, and perhaps ashamed. We knew
that with all our thought and skill and golfing learning, all our
strength and manhood, we could not do the same when at our games, and
that, the more we needed to do it by the importance of the golf that was
being played, the more difficult it was. Our selfish consolation was
that in time the little child would grow up and then he would not be
able to hole those putts, for then he would know that it was a difficult
thing to do, and would be embarrassed and defeated accordingly. For it
is the golfer's consciousness of imaginary difficulties that makes him
such a strange coward when this putting business is being done. He knows
that really the putting is easy, but he knows also that he must not
miss, that an inch lost here is as much of a loss as two hundred yards
in the driving--and he fears his fate. It is consciousness of the
stupidity of missing, nerves, fears, imagination, that make this missing
of short putts by the cleverest players, champions as much as any
others, the most remarkable thing that happens constantly in any game.
There is nothing like it. If it were not so easy, if there were good
excuse for failure, those putts would not be missed so frequently. In
putting, said Sir Walter Simpson, there is much to think about and much
more not to be thought of. "When a putter," he reflected, "is waiting
his turn to hole out a putt of one or two feet in length, on which the
match hangs at the last hole, it is of vital importance that he think of
nothing. At this supreme moment he ought studiously to fill his mind
with vacancy. He must not even allow himself the consolations of
religion. He must not prepare himself to accept the gloomy face of his
partner and the derisive delight of his adversaries with Christian
resignation should he miss. He must not think that it is a putt he would
not dream of missing at the beginning of the match, or, worse still,
that he missed one like it in the middle. He ought to wait, calm and
stupid, till it is his turn to play, wave back the inevitable boy who is
sure to be standing behind his arm, and putt as I have told him
how--neither with undue haste nor with exaggerated care. When the ball
is down, and the putter handed to the caddy, it is not well to say, 'I
couldn't have missed it.' Silence is best. The pallid cheek and
trembling lip belie such braggadocio."
* * * * *
The truth is that the man who golfs will unceasingly think of the things
he should not think of, and that is what makes this easy putting so
difficult, and it explains why the innocent child, unthinking, finds the
business as simple and pleasant as swinging under the boughs of a tree
on a sunny day in June. While there is one quite easy way of doing
nearly every putt, there are perhaps a dozen more or less difficult ways
of missing it, and it is these that are uppermost in the golfer's mind
when the time of his trial comes, and so once more is vice triumphant
while angels are depressed. There is the hole, a pit that is deep and
wide, four and a quarter inches in diameter, and there is the little
ball, only an inch and a half through the middle, and the intervening
space between the two is smooth and even. It would seem to be the
easiest thing in theory and practice to knock the ball into the large
hole; but how very small does the hole then appear to be and how much
too big for it is the ball! But the golfer knows that he should hole
that putt, and that if he fails he will never, never have the chance
again. Should he putt and miss the act is irrevocable; the stroke and
the hole, or the half of it, are lost, and nothing that can happen
afterwards can remove that loss. Should he at the beginning of the play
to a hole make a faulty drive, or should his approach play be very
inaccurate, he knows that he may atone for these mistakes by special
cleverness displayed in subsequent strokes, and with the buoyant hope
that constantly characterises him he thinks he will. 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. Once upon a
time I put the question to a number of the greatest players of the age
as to what were their thoughts, if any, when they came to making one of
these little putts on which championships or other great affairs almost
entirely depended, and almost invariably their answer was that at the
last supreme moment a thought came into their minds and was expressed to
themselves in these words: "What a fool I shall look if I miss this
putt!" Those words exactly did Willie Park, the younger, say quietly to
himself just as he was about to make the last short putt of a round at
Musselburgh, which would or would not give him a tie for the
championship with Andrew Kirkaldy. He did not say that if he missed the
putt he would lose the championship. He said he would look a fool.
The other day in a quiet corner of London, away from the game but, as it
happened, not from the thought of it, I had Harry Vardon with me engaged
in some serious talk in a broad and general way upon golfing men and
things. Ten years ago, when we were doing some kind of collaboration in
the production of a new book, he said to me very impressively and as one
who wonders exceedingly, "It is a funny game; let us impress that upon
them all, it is a very funny game," and now, having played perhaps five
thousand more rounds and won another Open Championship, he went forward
to the admission, "It is an awful game." He meant it, and one reason why
we like our Harry Vardon is because he too has always been awe-stricken
by this so-called game, and because there is no other man in golf who
sympathises better with the trials and tortures of the moderate player.
On this morning of spring he was telling me of another new and great
discovery he had made in putting methods, and in giving to me an account
of his pains, his sufferings in missing all the short putts he had
failed at in recent times--how dearly have they cost him!--he said it
was the two-feet putt that frightened him most of all, and declared
solemnly and seriously that he would rather have a three-yarder than
such a putt, and that he would hole the former oftener than the latter.
He said the two-feet putts frighten him, that as soon as he settles
himself down to the business of putting in such a case the hole seems to
become less and less. "I am overcome," says he, "with the idea that in a
moment it will be gone altogether. Then I am in a state of panic, and I
snatch at my putter and hit the ball quickly so that with a little luck
it may reach the hole before it goes away altogether and there is
nothing to putt at. When I have missed I see that the hole is there, and
as big as ever or bigger!" Vardon once tried putting left-handed, a
doctor having advised him to do so, and he found that the idea worked
splendidly, but he did not like the look of it. He believes after all
his sorrows that one of the greatest and best secrets of good putting is
to keep more absolutely still than do most golfers, who seem to think
it matters less in putting when it matters so much more.
* * * * *
Now the golfer in his wisdom, ingenuity, and resource has tried every
way he can think of to solve this problem of nerves and doubts by
mechanical and other means. Those who would be successful in
competitions have retired to bed at nine o'clock in the evening for a
month, and some of them have sipped from bottles of tonics hoping that
physic would serve to give them strong nerve, steady hands and courage,
but such methods have not availed. For no part of this or any other game
have so many different kinds of instruments been invented, though the
little child could do the putts with the head of a walking-stick or a
common poker. Scarcely a week goes by in the season but some new kind of
putter is introduced to the expectant multitude of harassed players, and
now and then a thrill runs through the world as they receive a clear
assurance that at last some special device has been discovered which
will make their putting ever afterwards easy and certain. There is a
thrill as if a secret of long life had been found. But the chill of
disappointment follows quickly. Golfers have now tried all things known,
and more short putts are missed than ever. Hundreds of different kinds
of putters have been invented. They have been made with very thin
blades, and with thick slabs of metal or other substance instead of mere
blades. They have been made like spades, like knives, like hammers, and
like croquet mallets. They have even been made like putters. They have
been made of wood, iron, aluminium, brass, gun-metal, silver, bone, and
glass. Here in my room I have the sad gift of the creator of a forlorn
and foolish hope. It is a so-called putter made in the shape of a roller
on ball bearings which is meant to be wheeled along the green up to the
ball. Like some others it was illegal according to the rules. To such
extravagances of fancy the desperate golfers have been led in their
desire to succeed in this putting that the authorities have had to step
in for the defence of the dignity of the game to declare a limit to the
scope of invention in this matter. And yet I once knew a man who for a
long period did some of the best putting that you would ever fear to
play against with a little block of wood that had once served to keep
the door of his study ajar, to which had been attached a stick that was
made from a broom handle. This improvised putter was a freak of his
fancy at a time when he thought there might be some virtue in a return
to prime simplicity. Then Mr. James Robb, who has won the Amateur
Championship once and been in the final on two other occasions, has
putted all his life with a cleek that his sister won in a penny raffle
when he was a boy and gave to him. Likewise Mr. John Laidlay has also
putted uninterruptedly since he was a boy with a cleek that is now so
thin with much cleaning that his friends tell him he may soon be able to
shave himself with it. But these are the grand exceptions after all.
Such fine settlement and constancy are unknown to the average player. It
was but the other day that I learned that a friend of mine, one most
distinguished in the game and of the very highest skill, had used
fifteen different putters on the day of an important competition--three
in the morning's play, nine others in noonday practice, and three quite
fresh ones in the afternoon game. The same good man carried a choice
assortment of his own putters to a recent amateur championship meeting,
but at the beginning of the tournament made love to one of mine,
borrowed it, and used it until he was beaten--not a long way from the
end of the competition. Sometimes it seems that what is rudest in
design, almost savage, is now best liked when in our frenzy we have
ransacked art, science, and all imagination in search of the putter with
which we can putt as we would. There is the spirit of reaction; we would
return to the primitive. Putters that look as if they might be for
dolls, some of those stumpy little things made of iron on a miniature
aluminium-putter model, which some of the great champions have been
using, have hardly become popular. The crude and the bizarre, suggestive
of inspiration, please well. I shall not forget Jean Gassiat, good
golfer of France, coming up to me one championship day at Hoylake,
holding forward in his right hand, and with its head in the air, what
was evidently meant for a golf club, but which was as much unlike one as
anything we had ever seen. On the face of the player was spread the grin
of pleasure; wordlessly he suggested that at last he had found it, the
strangest, the most wonderful. In principle this new club, as it has to
be called for courtesy, is akin to the affair of the door-stopper and
the broomstick. It consists of a plain flat rectangular piece of wood
about four inches long, two inches wide, and three-quarters of an inch
deep, and its two-inch nose is cut quite square, while for a couple of
inches at the end of the shaft the grip is thickened to twice its usual
size. It is weighted and balanced by large and small lead bullets in the
sole. It is possible to frame a good argument in favour of a putter made
of anything; nothing is without some advantage. It could be said for a
ginger-beer bottle that it would insist on the ball being most truly hit
from the middle of the vessel as the ball ought to be hit, and, given
notice, one could prepare a statement of claim on behalf of an old boot
seeking to be raised to the putterage. So there are good things to be
said for this putter from France, and one of the best is that after
smiling upon it Jean Gassiat began to wonder, then thought,
experimented, and fell in love with this putter completely. Some weeks
later I saw him doing those marvels on the green as are only done when
man and putter have become thoroughly joined together, and Gassiat has
always to be taken seriously in these matters, for, like Massy, he is a
Basque, and, like the old champion, he is one of the most beautiful
putters, with an instinct for holing. This most remarkable invention,
without desiring its extinction in the least, one would say, surely
departs a whole world of fancy farther from the traditional idea of what
a golf club should be than the poor Schenectady of the Americans which
St. Andrews proscribed. It was not the idea of Gassiat, nor of any other
than the Marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat, a French sportsman of
thoroughness and a very keen golfer. Seeing what Gassiat was doing,
James Sherlock obtained one of these barbaric tools, and at this the
public came in.
* * * * *
Every thinkable variety of putting method has been adopted. Bodies,
hands, feet have been placed in all positions, and the stroke has been
made in every conceivable way. Are there any two players who do it just
the same, or have the same advice to give? For a violent contrast take
two of the most able amateurs of the time, both of them long since
distinguished in the foremost competitions, Mr. John Low and Mr. H. S.
Colt. The former favours the wooden putter, and he has one of that kind
to which he is keenly attached, but he putts with all sorts of things as
the spirit moves him on consideration of special circumstances. He was
one of the early members of the thoughtful school of golf which has made
such a strong advance in recent times. Nearly always, however, you will
find him standing nearly upright when doing his putting, grasping a club
with a tolerably long shaft somewhere quite near to the top of the
handle. This erect attitude is that which our fore-fathers of the
traditions mostly favoured. Those splendid gentlemen, as we have agreed,
were fine golfers who conducted their game nobly, but it has always
seemed to me that they were an unimaginative lot. It never appears to
have occurred to them that because the club has a handle at the top was
no reason why they should grasp it up there instead of nearly at the
opposite end, as do a large body of the most enterprising and inquiring
amateurs these days. 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. But that putting of his is too much for most of the men who have to
play against it. When those who do not understand see men putting in
this way, or something like it, they say to themselves, and perhaps to
others, that they cannot see why the men do not have the unused part of
the shaft cut off so that it may not be in the way. But there they show
their deficiencies of knowledge, though one is not sure that all the men
who putt with a low grip quite know why they do so. They only know that
the method suits them, but the truth is often that in these cases the
balancing piece of the shaft above the hands acts as a steadier for the
piece below. A few students have carried this idea a point further by
having a piece of lead attached to the top of the handle to increase the
weight and the balancing influence of that part. Mr. Hammond Chambers is
one of them. The amateurs are the most original and peculiar in their
putting methods. For the most part the professionals, although adopting
widely different stances, hold themselves fairly well up when doing
their work on the green, and putt with an easy following-through stroke
as is recommended by the old masters. Strange that we should realise
that quite the most impressive, stylish, and beautiful putter of the
erect school is M'Dermott, the brilliant young American champion, who
stands straight up with his legs and heels touching, grips his putter at
the very end, and moving nothing but his club and hands, makes the most
delightfully smooth swing. The low-grip method is not at all conducive
to the gentle swinging, following-through putt, but encourages a sharp
little tap.
All the old original philosophy and instruction in putting can be
summarised in a very few words, but hundreds of thousands would be
needed for discussion of the variations, most of which have been used
successfully at some time. The majority of advisers make a point of it
that the ball must be hit truly, but they would not all be agreed on
what that "truly" was except that it was hitting it as they meant to do.
What most of them have in mind is that there is on the face of the
putter a proper hitting point, from which the ball will run more
accurately and with less disposition to slide off the right line than
when hit with any other part, that being the point of balance or the
sweet spot which every iron club possesses, and this point should be
brought to the ball by an even swing from the back, and the swing should
be continued after impact by the steady smooth advance of the head of
the club along the line that it was making at the moment of striking.
Absolute steadiness of the body is quite essential, and lack of it--just
the most trifling and almost undiscernible lack--is responsible for more
putting failures than almost any other cause. Most of those who tell us
what to do in golf advise that we should keep the arms and forearms
quite still also, and putt entirely from the wrist. And yet even these
canons, as they are considered, are defied by large bodies of players.
There are thousands of golfers who putt from the toes of their clubs,
and believe in the method. They say they can feel the ball better and
direct it more surely.
I quote again one of the first preceptors, Sir Walter Simpson, because I
think in most matters of feeling and practice he stands so well for the
old solid school of golf that has nearly died away. He insists on the
wooden putter, to begin with, and maintains that no good thing upon the
green can come out of iron, but therein he was mistaken and time has
cried him down. And then he writes: "I have just said there are, at
most, two or three attitudes in which good putting is possible. We are
nowadays inclined to be more dogmatic, and to assert that there is but
one. The player must stand open, half facing the hole, the weight on the
right leg, the right arm close to the side, the ball nearly opposite the
right foot. To putt standing square, the arms reached out, is as
difficult as to write without laying a finger on the desk." Had he lived
on to these more modern days he would not have been nearly so dogmatic
as that. Some of the very best putters do not play with the open stance,
but putt entirely from the left leg, that leg thrown forward and in
front and bearing all the weight, the right being merely hanging on
behind. Then they have the ball right opposite the left toe, and they
putt with a sense of strain which they believe in such circumstances is
conducive to delicacy. Tens of thousands of others could not putt in
this way, but those who can are very successful, and this is just
another indication of the danger of dogma in golf. As to the right arm
at the side, it may be said that there is now a fast increasing practice
on the part of those who bend down somewhat to their putting to rest the
right elbow or forearm on the right knee. J. H. Taylor experimented with
this idea on the very eve of the 1913 championship at Hoylake, his
putting for some time having been bad. He adopted it, won the
championship, and gave the new way of putting all the credit.
Now see how high and deeply thinking authorities can differ about the
ways and means of doing this thing that the little child does so
thoroughly and well. "A great secret of steady putting is to make a
point of always 'sclaffing' along the ground," said the baronet. "The
best putters do this, although it is not evident to an onlooker, the
noise of the scrape being inaudible. 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. But the greatest gain from treating
putting as a sclaffing process is the less delicate manipulation
required when short putts are in question. At a foot and a half from the
hole the clean putter often fails, from incapacity to graduate inches of
weakness, whilst the sclaffer succeeds because he is dealing with
coarser weight sensitiveness."
Now time and experience have showed us all that we cannot be dogmatic
about anything in golf except that the ball must be struck somehow, and
least of all may we venture to dogmatise in the matter of putting, and
we will only say now that the late Sir Walter has a heavy majority
against him on this suggestion that in doing the short putts it is well
to let the putter scrape along the grass when going forward to the ball.
It seems a small matter (that little man child never thought of it, but
I noticed he did not sclaff), yet a whole world of good and ill upon the
links is bound up with it. We shall set this happy golfer as he was, and
friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, against one of the great champions and
one of the finest putters who have ever handled clubs, and that is
Willie Park, the younger, who says, "One of the secrets of putting is to
hit the ball, and the ball only--a sclaffy style of putting is fatal;
and, with the object of making absolutely certain of avoiding it, rather
aim to strike the globe just the least thing above the ground. The ball
should be smartly tapped with the putter, the stroke being played
entirely from the wrists; and it should be neither struck a slow, heavy
blow, nor shoved, nor should it be jerked."
Most golfers will be with Willie in this matter, and those who have not
tried already that way of putting, the sole of the club being kept clear
from the turf when the stroke is being made, might do so to their very
likely advantage. It is a point that a player of limited experience
might never think about, and I know many who have been converted from
bad putters to good ones by it. Some of the leading players of the
Hoylake school have long been addicted to a slight elaboration or
variation of this method. As they bring the club on to the ball they
lift it slightly so that at the moment of impact a peculiar running spin
is given to the ball, one that is not quite the same thing as is
imparted by merely topping it. The way appears to help the hole to
gather the ball when it arrives, but it is a method that needs natural
aptitude and much practice to make it quite safe in application. And
then again, right away to the contrary, I have witnessed in recent
weeks a way of putting by one or two of the best players in the country,
which is new, and which they declare to be most effective when dealing
with the small heavy balls that are now in vogue and which are so
difficult to manage, especially on very keen greens. We have all heard
of the push shot, generally done with cleeks and the more powerful
irons--and many of us have tried to play it as Harry Vardon does, and
the things that I have seen done and described as push shots by ordinary
amateurs have been very dreadful. But, no matter; the idea of the push
shot is to hit the ball a kind of downward glancing blow, the club
coming to ground after impact, the result being that the ball starts off
quickly and pulls up suddenly. The players to whom I have referred have
applied this stroke to their putting, coming on to the ball above the
centre and gently pushing the club through it, and in the circumstances
I have indicated there can be no doubt they have succeeded. Balls being
so tricky now, these matters are worth considering.
You would perceive how boldly dogmatic was the writer of the early
classic on the question of stance. On that point there is just one more
word to say. The tendency seems to be increasing in these days towards
holding the feet closely together. It is a stance to which Harry Vardon,
after all his putting troubles, has nearly settled down, and many of the
best men on the green, Tom Ball for one, are given to it. But there is
no law, no recommendation even, only the most timid suggestion to be
made to any man in this matter. That way which suits him and gives him
confidence is the best, and one may find men putting marvellously well
when their stance and attitude seem to be so ungainly and difficult as
to cause them pain.
* * * * *
The method of holding the club has, at least, as much to do with good
putting as anything else, and in this matter one may almost dare to
dogmatise. The majority of players hold their putters with the two hands
close together but detached from each other, in much the same way as
they hold their other clubs. All of them have heard of what they call
the Vardon grip, or the overlapping grip, by which, when the club is
held, the left thumb is brought into the palm of the right hand, and the
little finger of that right hand is made generally to ride upon the
first of the left hand. Many try this grip for their long shots, but few
persist with it, as they become convinced either that their hands and
fingers are not strong enough for it, or that before they could master
the method they would need to suffer too much in loss of the game that
they already possess. Therefore they renounce the overlapping grip
entirely. But if they would try it in putting they would experience none
of the difficulties with which they are troubled when applying it to
their wooden club shots, no sort of force having to be given to the
stroke, and almost from the first attempt they would enjoy an advantage.
It is a matter of the most vital importance in putting that the two
hands should not interfere with each other to the very slightest extent.
One of them should have the general management of the putting, and the
other, if detached from it, should do little save act in a very
subordinate capacity as a steadying influence. Everybody is agreed upon
that; it is absolute. But when we have the two hands separate, as with
the ordinary grip, there is always a danger of the subordinate asserting
itself too much, or at all events varying in the amount of work that it
does. It cannot be avoided; it is inevitable. This, we may be sure, is
the cause of much bad and uncertain putting.
Join the two hands together, as with the overlapping grip, and we have
them working as one completely, and the risk of undue interference by
the subordinate vanishes. This is the best hint on putting that all our
counsellors have to give, and they one and all declare it will do more
than anything else to raise a man to the high level of excellence of the
innocent child. Sometimes we see men putting one-handed, and one may
believe that for medium and short putts this way is more certain than
the separate hands. Mr. Hilton once putted that way in the Amateur
International match, and I have seen many other good putters do well
with it. But it savours of freakishness, and, as a famous professional
said to the distinguished player who adopted the method, "God did not
give us two hands for one to be kept in a pocket while the putting was
being done." The simple truth is that the one-hand way approximates very
closely to the two-hand overlapping method. It is nearly the same thing,
the same principle--all the work being done from one point. Upon
thought, we often come to realise that what appear to be some of the
most freakish methods of putting have the same fundamental principle at
their base. Thus, take the case of Sherlock, who putts extremely well
and consistently. He almost alone, among players of the game, holds his
two hands wide apart on the handle of the putter, the left one
uppermost, of course. This looks very strange, and at the first
consideration it might seem that surely one hand will upset all the good
work and reckoning that is done by the other. But the simple fact is
that the left is so far away that it cannot interfere, and that is the
secret of the quality of this method. When the left is close up to the
right we cannot prevent it from meddling; we are unconscious of it when
it is doing so; but get it far away and we have it in subjection, and
all that it does in Sherlock's case is just to steady things up a little
while the right hand does the business of the time.
Mr. Walter Travis, the most eminent American, than whose putting in the
Amateur Championship he won at Sandwich nothing better has ever been
seen since time and the game began, long since adopted a slight
variation of this overlapping grip, specially for his putting, which, I
think, has something to commend it. Instead of letting the little finger
of the right hand rest on the forefinger of the left, he reverses the
situation, and puts the forefinger of the left hand on the little one of
the right, thus leaving the right hand in full possession of the grip,
both thumbs being down the shaft. In the other way it is the left hand
that has hold of the club with all its fingers, and it will now be
remembered that while the left hand is the chief worker in driving and
playing through the green, the right is the one that most frequently
does the putting.
Having thus mentioned Mr. Travis, one can hardly refrain from quoting
some of his instruction in this matter as he once conveyed it to me. "I
believe," said he, "that putting should always be done with one
hand--with one hand actively at work, that is. The left should be used
only for the purpose of swinging the club backwards preparatory to
making the stroke. When it has done that its work is ended and the right
hand should then be sole master of the situation, the left being merely
kept in attachment to it for steadying purposes. When only one hand is
thus employed the gain in accuracy is very great. Two hands at work on a
short putt or a long one tend to distraction. When the stroke is being
made the grip of the right hand should be firm, but not tight, and after
the impact the club-head should be allowed to pass clean through with an
easy following stroke. The follow-through should indeed be as long as it
is possible to make it comfortably, and, with this object in view, at
the moment of touching the ball the grip of the fingers of the left hand
should be considerably relaxed, so that the right hand may go on doing
its work without interruption. Never hit or jerk the ball as so many
players do. There is nothing that pays so well as the easy
follow-through stroke."
Yet we find that there is less than ever of that easy follow-through
being done in these days, and putting may be no better for the fact,
almost certainly is not. These are days when old maxims are being
abandoned and new systems are being proclaimed season by season. Jack
White, a splendid putter and a magnificent heretic, lately declared that
it is time to get rid of what has been regarded as the most inviolable
of maxims, "Never up, never in," asserting that the determination to be
past the hole in putting, if not in it, leads with these lively balls we
now play with to far too many of them running out of holing distance on
the other side. His counsel, therefore, is that the ball should be
coaxed gently up to the hole with as much drag applied to it as can be.
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.
It is a little bewildering. Arnaud Massy, the French player who once
won the Open Championship, and who is better at the putts of from six to
ten or twelve feet than any man I know, says that he has come to believe
that Nature has planted deep down in us a sixth sense, and it is that of
putting. In the development of that sense lies the way to success. But
after all such meditations as this, I go back to the remembrance of that
wonderful little child who could never miss, and then from it all there
emerges the only real secret of success in putting. The child has a
quality which we elders do not enjoy, and never shall have it for any
length of time. He knows not the hardness of the world. Having innocence
and faith he looks trustingly upon it, and the old world and its four
and a quarter inch hole is a little ashamed, perhaps. The child has
Confidence.