SIMPLE PUTTING
A game within another game--Putting is not to be taught--The
advantage of experience--Vexation of missing short putts--Some
anecdotes--Individuality in putting--The golfer's natural
system--How to find it--And when found make a note of it--The
quality of instinct--All sorts of putters--How I once putted for a
Championship--The part that the right hand plays--The manner of
hitting the ball--On always being up and "giving the hole a
chance"--Easier to putt back after overrunning than when short--The
trouble of Tom Morris.
Putting in golf is a game within another game. While I am not prepared
to endorse the opinion that is commonly expressed, that a golfer is born
and not made, I am convinced that no amount of teaching will make a
golfer hole out long putts with any frequency, nor will it even make him
at all certain of getting the short ones down. But it will certainly put
him in the right way of hitting the ball, which after all will be a
considerable gain. Experience counts for very much, and it will convert
a man who was originally a bad putter into one who will generally hold
his own on the greens, or even be superior to the majority of his
fellows. Even experience, however, counts for less in putting than in
any other department of the game, and there are many days in every
player's life when he realises only too sadly that it seems to count for
nothing at all. Do we not from time to time see beginners who have been
on the links but a single month, or even less than that, laying their
long putts as dead as anybody could wish almost every time, and getting
an amazing percentage of them into the tin itself? Often enough they
seem to do these things simply because, as we should say, they know
nothing at all about putting, which is perhaps another way of saying
that their minds are never embarrassed by an oppressive knowledge of all
the difficulties which the ball will meet with in its passage from the
club to the hole, and of the necessity of taking steps to counteract
them all. They are not afraid of the hole. The fact is that putting is
to a far greater extent than most of us suspect purely a matter of
confidence. When a man feels that he can putt he putts, and when he has
a doubt about it he almost invariably makes a poor show upon the greens.
Do I not know to my cost what it is to feel that I cannot putt, and on
those occasions to miss the most absurdly little ones that ever wait to
be popped into the hole without a moment's thought or hesitation? It is
surely the strangest of the many strange things in golf, that the old
player, hero of many senior medal days, victor in matches over a hundred
links, will at times, when the fortunes of an important game depend upon
his action, miss a little putt that his ten-year-old daughter would get
down nine times out of ten. She, dear little thing, does not yet know
the terrors of the short putt. Sometimes it is the most nerve-breaking
thing to be found on the hundred acres of a golf course. The heart that
does not quail when a yawning bunker lies far ahead of the tee just at
the distance of a good drive, beats in trouble when there are but thirty
inches of smooth even turf to be run over before the play of the hole is
ended. I am reminded of a story of Andrew Kirkaldy, who in his young
days once carried for a young student of divinity who was most painfully
nervous on the putting greens, and repeatedly lost holes in consequence.
When Andrew could stand this reckless waste of opportunities no longer,
he exclaimed to his employer, "Man, this is awfu' wark. Ye're dreivin'
like a roarin' lion and puttin' like a puir kittlin'." But the men whose
occupations are of the philosophical and peaceful kind are not the only
ones who may be fairly likened to Andrew's "puir kittlin'" when there
are short putts to be holed. Is there not the famous case of the
Anglo-Indian sportsman, one of the mightiest of hunters, who feared
nothing like the hole when it lay so near to him that his tears of agony
might almost have fallen into it? It was this man who declared, "I have
encountered all the manifold perils of the jungle, I have tracked the
huge elephant to his destruction, and I have stood eye to eye with the
man-eating tiger. And never once have I trembled until I came to a short
putt." Yet with such facts as these before us, some people still wonder
wherein lies the fascination of golf. How often does it happen that an
inch on the putting green is worth more than a hundred yards in the
drive, and that the best of players are confounded by this circumstance?
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?
For the proper playing of the other strokes in golf, I have told my
readers to the best of my ability how they should stand and where they
should put their feet. But except for the playing of particular strokes,
which come within the category of those called "fancy," I have no
similar instruction to offer in the matter of putting. 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. The
fact is that there is more individuality in putting than in any other
department of golf, and it is absolutely imperative that this
individuality should be allowed to have its way. I believe seriously
that every man has had a particular kind of putting method awarded to
him by Nature, and when he putts exactly in this way he will do well,
and when he departs from his natural system he will miss the long ones
and the short ones too. First of all, he has to find out this particular
method which Nature has assigned for his use. There ought not to be much
difficulty about this, for it will come unconsciously to his aid when he
is not thinking of anybody's advice or of anything that he has ever read
in any book on golf. That day the hole will seem as big as the mouth of
a coal mine, and putting the easiest thing in the world. When he stands
to his ball and makes his little swing, he feels as easy and comfortable
and confident as any man can ever do. Yet it is probable that, so far as
he knows, he is not doing anything special. It may happen that the very
next day, when he thinks he is standing and holding his club and hitting
the ball in exactly the same way, he nevertheless feels distinctly
uncomfortable and full of nervous hesitation as he makes his stroke, and
then the long putts are all either too short, or too long, or wide, and
the little ones are missed.
I don't think that the liver or a passing variation in temperament is
altogether the cause of this. I believe it is because the man has
departed even by a trifle from his own natural stance. A change of the
position of the feet by even a couple of inches one way or the other may
alter the stance altogether, and knock the player clean off his putting.
In this new position he will wriggle about and feel uncomfortable.
Everything is wrong. His coat is in the way, his pockets seem too full
of old balls, the feel of his stockings on his legs irritates him, and
he is conscious that there is a nail coming up on the inside of the sole
of his boot. It is all because he is just that inch or two removed from
the stance which Nature allotted to him for putting purposes, but he
does not know that, and consequently everything in the world except the
true cause is blamed for the extraordinary things he does. A fair
sample of many others was the clergyman who, having missed a short putt
when playing in a match over a Glasgow links, espied in the distance on
an eminence fully a quarter of a mile away from the green, an innocent
tourist, who was apparently doing nothing more injurious to golf than
serenely admiring the view. But the clerical golfer, being a man of
quick temper, poured forth a torrent of abuse, exclaiming, "How could I
hole the ball with that blockhead over there working his umbrella as if
it were the pendulum of an eight-day clock!" When this is the kind of
thing that is happening, I advise the golfer to try variations in his
stance for putting, effecting the least possible amount of change at a
time. There is a chance that at last he will drop into his natural
stance, or something very near it, and even if he does not there is some
likelihood that he will gain a trifle in confidence by the change, and
that will count for much. And anyhow there is ample justification for
any amount of manoeuvring of the body and the feet when one is off
one's putting, for at the best, to make use of something like an
Irishism, the state of things is then hopelessly bad, and every future
tendency must be in the way of improvement. There is one other
suggestion to make to those golfers who believe what I say about the
natural stance, and by this time it will have become more or less
obvious to them. It is that when they are fairly on their putting, and
are apparently doing all that Nature intended them to do, and are
feeling contented in body and mind accordingly, they should take a sly
but very careful look at their feet and body and everything else just
after they have made a successful long putt, having felt certain all the
time that they would make it. This examination ought not to be
premeditated, because that would probably spoil the whole thing; and it
usually happens that when one of these long ones has been successfully
negotiated, the golfer is too much carried away by his emotions of
delight to bring himself immediately to a sober and acute analysis of
how it was done. But sometime he may remember to look into the matter,
and then he should note the position of everything down to the smallest
detail and the fraction of an inch, and make a most careful note of them
for future reference. It will be invaluable. So, as I hold that putting
is a matter of Nature and instinct, I make an exception this time to my
rule in the matter of illustrations, and offer to my readers no diagram
with stance measurements. From the two photographs of myself putting in
what I had every reason to believe at the time was my own perfectly
natural stance, they may take any hints that they may discover.
[Illustration: _PLATE LVII._ PUTTING]
[Illustration: _PLATE LVIII._ PUTTING]
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. In no other sense is
there such a thing as a best putter. The only semblance of a suggestion
that I will presume to offer in this connection is, that for very long
putts there is something to be said in favour of the wooden and
aluminium putters, which seem to require less exertion than others, and
to enable the player to regulate the strength of the stroke more
exactly. For the shorter ones, I like the putting cleek best. But even
these are matters of fancy, and what a great deal even the vaguest, most
unreasoning belief in a putter has to do with the success with which it
is manipulated I have as good a reason as anyone to understand, since I
owe my first Championship largely to the help of a putter which I had
never used before, and which was really not a putter at all, but, as I
have explained elsewhere, simply a little cleek which I picked up
accidentally in a professional's shop on the eve of the struggle, and in
which I had a new shaft fixed to my own liking. On that occasion I
putted with this instrument as the winner of a championship ought to
putt, but I have never been able to do any good with it since, and in
these days it is resting idly in my shop, useless but quite
unpurchasable for any money. I do believe that it is a good thing to be
the possessor of two putters, with both of which you have at one time or
another done well, and in which you have unlimited confidence. Don't
carry them both in the bag at the same time, but keep one safe in the
locker, and when the day comes, as it surely will, when you are off your
putting, take it out on to the links for the next round and see what you
can do with it. Your weakness on the green may no more have been the
fault of the other putter than the tourist was the cause of the
clergyman missing the little one at Glasgow, but very much will be
gained if you can persuade yourself that it was.
It is to a certain extent possible to be definite in remarking upon the
grip. Some good golfers clasp their putters tightly with both hands;
others keep the left hand loose and the right hand firm; and a third
selection do the reverse, each method being justified on its day. But in
this part of the game it is quite clear that the right hand has more
work to do than the left. It is the right hand that makes the stroke,
and therefore I consider that it should be allowed plenty of play, and
that the left wrist should be held more loosely than the right. For my
part I use the same overlapping grip in putting as in all the other
strokes, making just this one small variation, that instead of allowing
the right thumb to fall over the shaft, as when driving or playing
through the green, I place it on the top of the shaft and pointing down
it. This seems to me to make for accuracy.
In playing what we may call an ordinary putt, that is to say, one
presenting no difficulties in the way of stymies, slopes of the green,
or anything of that kind, I think it pays best in the long run to make a
point of always hitting the ball with the middle of the face of the
club, although, I believe, Willie Park, one of the greatest of putters,
always hits the ball off the toe of the club and comes in to the hole
from the right-hand side of it. Other players consistently and by design
half top the ball when they are putting. There should be no sharp hit
and no jerk in the swing, which should have the even gentle motion of a
pendulum. In the backward swing, the length of which, as in all other
strokes in golf, is regulated by the distance it is desired to make the
ball travel, the head of the putter should be kept exactly in the line
of the putt. Accuracy will be impossible if it is brought round at all.
There should be a short follow-through after impact, varying, of course,
according to the length of the putt. In the case of a long one, the club
will go through much further, and then the arms would naturally be more
extended. In the follow-through the putter should be kept well down, the
bottom edge scraping the top of the grass for some inches. It is easy to
understand how much more this course of procedure will tend towards the
accuracy and delicacy of the stroke than the reverse method, in which
the blade of the putter would be cocked up as soon as the ball had left
it.
Before I close my remarks on the simple putt, I feel that it is a duty
to repeat once more those wise maxims relating to putting that have been
uttered some tens of thousands of times already. "Never up, never in."
There is nothing so true, and the number of matches and medals that have
been lost through the reckless and foolish disregard of this rule must
be enormous. The hole will never come to you; therefore make up your
mind that you will always go to the hole, and let it be an invariable
practice to play for the back of the tin so that you will always have
just a little in hand. The most deadly accuracy and the nicest
calculations are all wasted if the ball is just half a turn short of the
opening, and there is nothing in the whole of the play between one tee
and the next more exasperating than the long putt which hesitates and
stops on the very lip of the hole. There is another very good reason for
always playing very well up to the hole, which may not have occurred to
all golfers who read these lines. Suppose that in the exercise of this
rule about always being up at any cost, too much has been put into the
ball, and, refusing to die when it ought to do, it skips over the hole
and comes to a standstill several inches beyond. "That's the result of
being up!" exclaims the irritated golfer. But he feels at any rate that
he has given the hole the chance for which it asked, and has a far
greater sense of satisfaction and of duty done than if the ball had
stopped a foot or more short of the place that was made for it. This may
be the reason why an eighteen-inch or two-feet putt back to the hole
from the far side always seems easier and is less frequently missed than
a putt of the same distance from the original side, which is merely
making up for the shortage in the first putt. Whether that is the reason
or not, there is the fact, and though they may not have considered the
matter hitherto, I feel confident that on reflection, or when they take
note of future experiences, most of my readers will admit that this is
so. It is a final argument for playing to the back of the hole and never
being short. One of the greatest worries of the glorious life of old Tom
Morris was that for a long time when in the middle of his career he was
nearly always short with his long putts, and his son, young Tom, used
wickedly to say that his father would be a great putter if the hole were
always a yard nearer. Tom, I believe, was always conscious of his
failing, and made the most strenuous efforts to correct it, and this
only shows what a terrible and incurable habit this one of being short
can become, and what necessity there is for the golfer to exercise his
strength of mind to get rid of it in his early days, and establish the
practice of being up every time. Often enough he will run over, but
sometimes the kind hole will gobble the ball, and on the average he will
gain substantially over the nervous, hesitating player who is always
short.