The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-11-14

! KEOcked It perndpS oU yafuS, IT some l body hadn't said don't just as my club | was descending toward it. | Advice differs from castor oil in the i respect that it is better not to take it l quickly When it comes out of clear 1 sky, when you are told for example to l change the position of your feet just as your club is within a foot of your | ball. 1t is disconcerting. ! Still, 1 was eager for advice, for l kpew that I needed 1t. Most beginning 1 golfers need it. but I doubt if there was ] ever one who needed it as much as I did
 | tried to act on it every time it was , given me, and even when two or three 1 people gave me different kinds of ad- vice at the same time, The results were not good. In time
 got so that I would think of all the ! different positions recommended to me 1 by different players every time triel
 to drive, and attempt to take them all | at the same time
 : In consequence my attitude was such l that people used to hurry clear across ] the course to watch me drive. ! But I got even with these curiosity
 seekers. l never drove. The ball was 1 as secure on that tee as If it had been 1 protected by turret of five inch ar
 nor.
 1 I drove away sections of the tee, and
 now and then hit myself in the heel or | .he shins, but the ball never departed. 1 Twas too busy trying to follow advice 1 to come within a foot of it. I Now and then. while on the fair way, after I had got disgusted and ladled | the ball off the tee as one would l shovel coal. I would land with an iron. ADVICE WAS USELESS | That kept me cheered up and at tha same. It also fired me with ambition l to learn to play for there is nothing 1 that so arouses sinful pride in a man as accidentally hitting golf ball in the right place at the right time and
 sending it soaring toward the green. 1 After a time even my best meaning 1 friends saw that advice was wasted on mo, so they gave me their last bit of it, which was to secure the services of a rcfessiona1.
 l I did. And what was my painted as- sional, instead of being kindly and SC othing. and teaching one slowly to do the rxht things, was merely big i ser bag of advice than any of my friends had been.
 In the first place he would take the club out of my hands. wrench my arms into positions that hurt me bitterly, pur | it back and command me to drive. l Naturally as soon as he let go of my hands they flew back into easy positions like rubber bands. Muscles are elastic, you know.
 i Then he would patiently pull them out again, and finally say something like I this:
 Don't do everything wrong. Don't 1 stand with your feet set as if you were going to walk backwards. Don't hold the i club behind you that way. Don't look l where the ball is going. It isn't going i anywhere. Don't lift up your heal. Don't keep your right shoulder down.
 don't keep your left shoulder down
 Stay where I put you. Don't jerk
 back your arms. Keep your eye on the ball-no, not that eye the other one 1 With these things in mind I would try
 to bring down the club, but in vain I When it was half way down would | think of something else he had said and start the drive all over again. 1 Each time I got it up he would tell me something new, which l would remeln-
 Der only after I had started to drive
 once more.
 1 Then back the club would go, and the
 professional, who never got impatient CT out of temper, would tell that was doing something else wrong. 1O-YEAR-OLD SHAMES ME l After every lesson my muscles achetf ! like the toothache from the stretching
 he had given them and from the strain l of holding my arms and back in posi-
 tion I had never asseumed before and which in all likelihood no one else ever had. l Incidentally my sef-respect began to wane The professional would take the club now and then. and with light zap send the ball a couple of hundred yards !away where a 1C-year-old caddie was waiting to retrieve it.
 1 The 1O-year-old caddie, who had a rusty
 old iron, would, on receiving it. give II
 another light tap, and back it would i sail-another 200 yards.
 l Yet here was l. with a brand-new anG ! nicely vanished driver, and an opinion 1 of my ability that had once been aver
 age, unable to hit the ball at all.
 i, The professional says that after a year
 of careful practice. if I follow his direc-
 tions, I shall be able to hit at least one
 ball out of every six that I try to nit.
 l But I know that I shall not. Anyway. II am not going to follow his directions. | Copyright l9a0, by Bell Syndicate, 1nc.)