Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1913-04-17
GOLF GOSSIP

With the stirring title of Self
! Help" Mark Allerton begins the next
part of his article on technical prac-
Using.
| 1t is rather curious that thousands
of moderate golfers, who would give
almost anything in order to improve
their form, consistently ignore this
! golden agency of solo study and prac-
| tise 1t may be a matter OF tempera-
ment Possibly many people would
! not benefit from such system of
| training, since the very solitude Of 1t
would bore them into, condition OF
! impatience with it and bring about a
lapse of interest sdch as would de-
prive the business Of its usefulness.
Eut there must be numerous persons
who could enter with zest into a
scheme of daily seH-help and who
neglect it only because they do not
appreciate its value. It is bound to
be more efficacious than volume of
hope, or dozen new clubs, or a heart
full of confidence, excellent as are
those qualities and quantities. When
II. II. Hilton was young he practised
assiduously; that was how he became
the most technical, IL not the most
brilliant of all amateurs. It Is an I'M.
mistakable fact that the tendency of
the present age is to practise less and
less and to place more and more re-.
nance on clubs of original design and
rubber-cored balls of astounding re-
E~siliency and stability We all like the
| best implement and the best ball that
we can obtain, but the best way to
advance is to spend half an hour or
an hour as frequently as possible In
playing and thinking about the.
Harry Vardon has said that for a
year or two after he took up golf as a
profession he did scarcely anything
but practise He spent about a year
in working out the overlapping grip
which has become so popular. He
tried this, that and dozen other ways
of holding the club. J. e. Laidlay was
even then employing the overlapping
grip, but Vardon had not heard OF it
and he applied himself to the task of
! finding a better way of graspfng the
club than any which he had seen.
So, too, with the manner Of execut-
ing shots. This point is particularly
worthy of mention in the case Of
player like Vardon, because he APP
pears to play golf as though it had
come naturally to him and he had
never bothered to think about 1t. SIM
iiarIy James Braid transformed him
self from bad putter into good
enc by sheer diligence, by sheer per-
tinacity in practising. Nearly all good
putters practise lot; Tom Ball. who
is one of the best men in the world
at the short game, has said that IN the
early part of the season he sometimes
spends three or four hours each day
doing nothing but putt. He fixes upon
eight positions round green and Wis
it's each time after time. Moreover,
he holes every putt. He does not
even give himself a stroke of three
inches; he holes it. Possibly, per-
son requires monumental patience TO
do this kind of thing, but the value
of it is undeniable.
Amongst those golfers who have
made a technique of practising and
found il very profitable, there is a
consensus of opinion tat it is impor-
tant always to aim at a goal instead
of banging a ball about the course
more or less promiscuously. Many
players take out brassy, spoon, a
cleek or an iron and content them
selves with accomplishing full shots
with no particular marx at which to
aim. So long as they strike the ball
truly and send it in the line which
they have selected for it they feel
satisfied That is better than nothing,
hut it is not so good as fixing upon
a spot where the ball shall come to
lest. and seeing how often one can
finish within a few yards OF it. In
the latter way judgment of distance is
cultivated and that faculty is invalua-
bic There are many good judges who
consider that amateur golf is deterior-
ating and most of them are equally
convinced that the reason is that mod
ern players do not practise with the
constancy of their predecessors. There
could be no better example OF the
made golfer than W. J. Travis, who