The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1898-04-15
IHE GAME OF GOLF. :
With Important Instructions to
Beginners and Others.


The Stability and Use of the Game-The
Importance of Proper Instruction
A talk on Golf "Form"-Notes ON Posi-
tion-An Argument Against Perpetual
Medal PIay-Pisying Against Bogey
Seore-No Play Against Time-How to
Spend Spare Moments on the Course.
BY WILLIAM WEIR.
Professional to Morris County and Pine
Forest Clubs.
s.All the worlds stage. =. and one
man in his time plays many parts" If
a sermon were preached, or lecture de-
ivered, on a game of golf, the latter
part of the quotation would make very
appropriate text, for any man who be-
gins to play golf will find, before he at
talns any proficiency in it, that he has to
play many parts indeed.
This game has taken great hold on
the people of this country; Golf Clubs
are springing up all over the States and
the time seems to be not for distant when
every town will have its golf course and
clubhouse. 1t is not like number of
games which, during this generation,
have been brought to life, lived for a
while and then died natural death.
Golf will live on for ages to come. |
say it will live on and my first reason for
saying so is that it is not violent exer-
else. People of ali ages can play it
boys and girls. young men and maidens,
old men and matrons. Again, it is a
very healthy exercise; every muscle and
nerve of the body is brought into active
play; physically and mentally there is no
game of the present day can equal it. Its
present popularity in Great Britain is
not the result of a sudden craze, but of
a steady growth of over two hundred
and fifty years, and this fact alone is
good guarantee Of its stability and ment.
would suggest that any one begin
ming this game, should, if possible, get
some competent instructor to give few
points at the start, as to holding and
swinging the club, and as to the position
in which he ought to stand; then be very
careful in taking advice from any one
except from those who really know how
to handle the clubs. l have seen both
men and women, who were able to strike
a ball off the fstee" about once in four,
times, undertaking to show beginners
how to play certain shots which they
could not do themselves. By following
such instructions you get into bad form,
and cramp your swings, and it will give
You more trouble to unlearn this than it
will to learn the right way. Stick to
one instructor; if he knows his profess
sion he will put you on the right path
and through patience and praUice you
will soon become a golfer; but on the
other hand, if you take every Tom, Dick
and Harry's advice you may get GER
tain length but you will not get any
further. Putting youself in the hands
of an instructor in golf, in whom you
have confidence, is the very same as
going to your medical adviser and ask
Wing him to g. - 6ff a bodily CUM plant
If you act according to his instructions.
he will put you right in short time,
bat if you take every old wife's cure for
the same complaint, you will, in all
probability, become an invalid for life.
/ have heard it remarked, and have
also read in periodicals, that this talk of
form" in golf is ''all rot;" and the in
this subject point to few prominent
golfers in this country and say: '.Look
at those men; they have no form; they
have acquired style of their own. See
how they play the game" Well, / ad-
NIT that there are few men in this
country, in the front rank of gclfers-Of
the present day, who have acquired thu
art without instruction; but you cam
count them all upon the fingers of one
hand, and / will venture to say that in a
very short time they will have to step
back, as there are young men coming
rapidly to the front with first class form
and 60 10 will put the others in the
my one mean to say that
nan or a woman past the
to begin to learn to play a
4 " knowing anything about
pgering of the key board,
# y instruction? No doubt
patience and practice, at
ain time, be able to play
M mt to comic song; but
competent instruction,
accomplished musician.
applies to golf. You
or women to acquire
pc perfect swing to
can never with conf
out of twelve make
e AN M h 3z 5 air one hundred and
and seventy yards
ad been shot out of
=. Il !. educated to do it;
"a approach shot of
So be wrists by making
ack instead of for
- t the ball in the
and 1af II eto,1
f. having an in
# manipulation of
Va. f e kown just how
who have